A review of fake news detection approaches: A critical analysis of relevant studies and highlighting key challenges associated with the dataset, feature representation, and data fusion

Currently, social networks have become the main source to acquire news about current global affairs. However, fake news appears and spreads on social media daily. This disinformation has a negative influence on several domains, such as politics, the economy, and health. In addition, it further generates detriments to societal stability. Several studies have provided effective models for detecting fake news in social networks through a variety of methods; however, there are limitations. Furthermore, since it is a critical field, the accuracy of the detection models was found to be notably insufficient. Although many review articles have addressed the repercussions of fake news, most have focused on specific and recurring aspects of fake news detection models. For example, the majority of reviews have primarily focused on dividing datasets, features, and classifiers used in this field by type. The limitations of the datasets, their features, how these features are fused, and the impact of all these factors on detection models were not investigated, especially since most detection models were based on a supervised learning approach. This review article analyzes relevant studies for the few last years and highlights the challenges faced by fake news detection models and their impact on their performance. The investigation of fake news detection studies relied on the following aspects and their impact on detection accuracy, namely datasets, overfitting/underfitting, image-based features, feature vector representation, machine learning models, and data fusion. Based on the analysis of relevant studies, the review showed that these issues significantly affect the performance and accuracy of detection models. This review aims to provide room for other researchers in the future to improve fake news detection models.