IAra

This project was done to obtain the grade of PROGRAMMING FOR MOBILE DEVICES.

##DIAGNOSIS AND THEORIZATION

1. Identification of the parties involved and partners

This extension project is carried out by students of the Computer Science course at Estácio College in Manaus, as part of the Android Mobile Programming discipline. Our target audience is quite diverse, including people who are less familiar with digital use, especially those more vulnerable to misinformation, such as the elderly, residents of peripheral communities and novice internet users. The choice of this group was based on public data that shows the growth in the dissemination of fake news in Brazil, especially in social networks and messaging applications. We do not yet have a formal institutional partnership, but the goal of the project is to meet a real demand from society. In the future, we will plan to present our actions in public schools, community associations, churches or digital inclusion events.

2. Demands and/or situations problems identified

The main concern we identified is the vulnerability of people with low digital literacy to incorrect information on the internet, especially fake news circulating in social networks and messaging apps. Many of these people have basic difficulties in knowing if an information is true or false, which can generate confusion, fear or even dangerous attitudes. This question arose from day-to-day observations, news analysis on the impact of fake news and conversations with family members and community members, who reported difficulties in interpreting and validating the content received digitally. The lack of knowledge about reliable sources, the absence of a digital critical sense and the appealing way in which many fake news are presented only increase this problem.

3. Socio-community demand and academic motivation

Considering the challenges related to access to reliable information and the growing spread of fake news, especially among people with low digital literacy, the project "Identificador de Fake News para o Cotidiano" appears as a real opportunity to use technology to help society. The idea is to allow students of the Computer Science course to put into practice what they learn in the disciplines of Mobile Programming, Software Development and Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals, using the React Native framework to create a practical solution, inclusive and social impact. The Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach, which guides the discipline, favors the connection between academic knowledge and the real needs of the community. Thus, the group has a chance to develop an application aimed at digital education and the fight against disinformation, with an accessible tool and an easy-to-use interface. The project also allows the use of basic NLP (Natural Language Processing) models to identify patterns in suspicious texts, which represents a practical and interdisciplinary application of the knowledge acquired during the training. The motivation of the group goes beyond the technical scope. The development of the application refers to the desire to contribute to a more informed society and less vulnerable to digital manipulations.It also reinforces the social role of the technology professional, by serving users unfamiliar with technologies; makes it possible to create solutions that can empower digitally marginalized people. Thus, learning becomes more significant because students not only develop their technical skills, but also social sensitivity, in addition to critical awareness, becoming active subjects in their respective communities.

4. Objectives/results effects to be achieved

• Develop an educational and accessible mobile application that helps users to identify whether a news is potentially false or true, through a textual verification system.

• Promote basic media literacy, integrating in the app educational content on how to identify fake news and encourage source checking.

• Evaluate the usability and social impact of MVP with a real audience (colleagues, family or community), collecting qualitative feedback to validate its usefulness and clarity.

5. Theoretical referential (theoretical support for proposing actions of the extension)

• Digital literacy and the fight against disinformation The increase in the circulation of fake news has had a worrying impact on vulnerable communities, especially those with less access to formal education and digital literacy. According to Koltay (2011), information literacy is essential for individuals to critically interpret the content they consume, especially in the digital environment. The project "Fake News Identifier for Everyday" aims to act directly in this context, promoting a bridge between technology and social awareness. Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) argue that combating disinformation requires more than just fact-checking; it is necessary to develop the critical capacity of users in relation to sources of information. By building an intuitive application with React Native, focused on users with little technological familiarity, we sought to align accessibility with features that encourage critical thinking and continuous learning about the characteristics of fake news. According to Pennycook and Rand (2019), misinformation spreads quickly because many people share content impulsively, without assessing its veracity. This observation justifies the implementation of a simple interface, with alerts and check tips, which act directly on the user’s behavior, helping to identify and block this type of content.
• Applications of Artificial Intelligence and PLN in everyday life The use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) has grown significantly in solutions involving textual analysis and semantic understanding. According to Jurafsky and Martin (2023), NLP-based tools allow the detection of linguistic patterns characteristic of misleading texts such as sensationalism, exaggeration or polarized language. This approach will be applied in the project to offer a first level of automated analysis of user-shared content. Cambria et al. (2014) highlight that the combination of NLP with sentiment analysis can help identify content with strong emotional load - a common trait in fake news. The application proposal is to use these techniques to signal suspicious posts, helping the user in the process of reflection before sharing.
• Mobile development with React Native and social impact React Native, a framework maintained by Meta Platforms, Inc., has established itself as a powerful tool for the development of multiplatform applications, allowing rapid prototyping and great adaptability in social projects. According to the Awari blog (2025), its structure based on reusable components facilitates the creation of accessible and adapted interfaces for different user profiles. This modular approach not only accelerates the development process, but also promotes visual and functional consistency of the application, essential aspects when seeking to serve an audience with varying levels of digital literacy. In addition, React Native allows access to native APIs and support for third-party libraries, expanding the possibilities of integrating functionalities that enrich the user experience.

Referências:

KOLTAY, T. “The Media and Information Literacy: The Need for a New Understanding.” Journal of Information Literacy, 2011.

WARDLE, C., & DERAKHSHAN, H. “Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making.” Council of Europe report, 2017.

PENNYCOOK, G., & RAND, D. “Fighting misinformation on social media using crowdsourced judgments of news source quality.” PNAS, 2019.

JURAFSKY, D.; MARTIN, J. H. Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition. 3rd. ed. USA: Prentice Hall PTR, 2023.

CAMBRIA, E., SCHULLER, B., LIU, B., WANG, H., & HAVASI, C. “Knowledge-Based Approaches to Concept-Level Sentiment Analysis.” IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2014.

Awari. “React Native: O Que É e Qual Sua Importância?” Blog Awari, 2025. Disponível em: https://awari.com.br/react-native-o-que-e-e-qual-sua-importancia/

Alonza. “O que é React Native? Tudo o que você precisa saber.” Alonza, 2025. Disponível em: https://alonza.com.br/o-que-e-react-native

##PLANNING FOR PROJECT DEVELOPMENT

Identification of the participating public The target audience of this work are all people, preferably having less digital literacy (someone who does not know or has not much knowledge about media information on the Internet). This persona can have an age from 18 years, because this project aims to encompass the largest number of people, no matter their age, but how much the person is likely to believe in internet news. The choice of target audience, was given through group meetings, where it was raised and researched which would be the best public, where the final product could have the greatest possible impact, helping a whole community and not only few people, so that he can help in changing the life of an entire population. In addition, people with less digital mastery are more likely to believe sensationalist news that is not true, leading the person to share false information with larger groups. The expected benefits for this project include: greater awareness of fake news, improvement in the critical capacity of the persona created, easier access to a simple and intuitive checker and of course digital inclusion.

**2. Description of how the public involved in project formulation is involved in its development and evaluation. **

The problem of the project was developed based on a pain seen in the population, with increasing cases of false news being shared and alarming something that does not exist, based on this situation witnessed by the developers, we collect the pains of people with low digital literacy also, such as the difficulty in deciding whether a news is real or not, for this was identified that a way to mitigate this would be the creation, within the application itself, an educational base, to teach people about news that is more likely to be false. The other exchanges will be only for validation and test of the application, to observe if it is in an intuitive way and that anyone can be using without any problem.

7. Estimated resources

As the objective is of social impact and the project has no financial support, it was chosen to use free technologies that contribute a lot to the project, personal materials were also used. Materials: Personal smartphones, Personal notebooks Technology: React Native (open-source), GitHub, Figma, Trello.

All financial resources will be minimized or replaced by free options.

##CLOSURE OF THE PROJECT

1. Collective report

1.1 Project Development Path

1.1.2 What was initially planned

The project "IAra: An app for digital literacy and identification of fake news with AI" was conceived as a university extension initiative of the Computer Science course at Estácio College in Manaus. The initial planning, as detailed in the document, had as main objectives: Develop an educational and accessible mobile application that assists users in identifying potentially fake news through a textual verification system. Promote basic media literacy, integrating in the application educational content on how to identify fake news and encourage checking sources. Evaluate the usability and social impact of MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with a real audience (colleagues, family or community), collecting qualitative feedback to validate its usefulness and clarity. The priority target audience was people with less digital literacy, such as elderly people, residents of peripheral communities and novice internet users, in order to combat the growing dissemination of disinformation in Brazil. The planned methodology included data collection, active listening, participatory design, agile development (using React Native), and testing. The initial schedule set the period from February to June 2025 for development.

1.1.3 What was actually executed

The execution of the project focused on the development of the mobile application, following the proposed architecture and essential functionalities of a tool for fake news identification and learning. The main executions include: Development of the React Native Application Base: Authentication (Login, Register) and navigation screens have been implemented, including a simple user management system via AsyncStorage for demonstration. Implementation of the Chat Screen: The main interface of the application, where users can enter texts for verification, has been created. Communication with an external Flask API for processing and response has been configured. Flask API integration: A basic Flask API has been developed and configured to run locally, simulating text processing and returning a response, validating the communication flow between frontend and backend. Creation of Learning Modules: A dedicated section was developed with 5 educational modules on how to identify fake news, accessible through a side menu. Development of Mini-Game "Is it Fact or Fake?": An interactive game was implemented to engage the user in an immersive way in learning about fake news, using scenarios based on the characteristics of disinformation. Robust Navigation Framework: A complete navigation system was implemented using React Navigation (Stack and Drawer Navigators), ensuring the smooth transition between authentication screens, chat, learning modules and the mini-game. Usability Adjustments: Several layout optimizations have been made, such as the keyboard behavior in TextInput for Android, ensuring that the interface elements remain visible and accessible.

1.1.4 Difficulties Encountered

The path of development was not without challenges, being the main difficulties: Client-Local Server Connection (API Flask and Expo Go): The most persistent difficulty was to establish a reliable communication between the React Native application (running via Expo Go on mobile/emulator) and the Flask API (running locally on notebook). Issues like "Network request failed" and "Connection timeout" were recurrent, requiring extensive IP debugging, operating system firewall configurations (Windows Defender) and router resource investigation (like "AP Isolation", which in the end didn’t seem to be the main cause on your router). Layout and Responsiveness on Different Platforms: Ensuring that the layout and interaction (especially the KeyboardAvoidingView behavior) worked optimally in both iOS (emulator) and Android (physical mobile phone) presented unexpected complexities, requiring fine and specific adjustments for each platform. Nested Navigation in React Navigation: The implementation of a complex navigation structure with nested Drawer Navigator and Stack Navigators, and communication between them (ex: toggleDrawer from child screens), generated errors such as "Cannot read property 'toggleDrawer' of undefined", which demanded specific library solutions. Image Paths and Resource Loading: Image load errors (require with relative paths) led to application startup failures ("Something went wrong."), indicating the sensitivity of the Expo environment to incorrect paths or asset processing issues.

1.1.5 Results Achieved

Despite the difficulties, the results achieved are promising and in line with the initial objectives: Functional Application (MVP): An IAra application MVP has been developed, with essential chat functionalities for text verification, user registration/login and interactive educational modules. Basis for Fake News Verification: The communication architecture with a Flask API has been established, creating a foundation for future integration of more complex Natural Language Processing (NLP) models for identifying patterns in suspicious texts. Interactive Educational Tool: The section of Learning Modules and especially the mini-game "Is it Fact or Fake?" represent concrete tools to promote basic media literacy and digital literacy in an engaging way. Mobile Development Experience: The group has gained significant hands-on experience in developing mobile applications with React Native, state management, complex navigation and API integration. Infrastructure Troubleshooting: Overcoming the challenges of connection and firewall has deepened knowledge about network debugging and development environment configuration.

2. Relevance of the Product Chosen for Delivery

The mobile application "IAra" is the product chosen for delivery and is extremely relevant to the evidence of interaction between the participating communities. Nature of the interaction: The project was born from the identification of a "pain in the population" - the vulnerability of people with low digital literacy to online disinformation. The interaction with the community will be through the provision of an easy-to-access tool that directly attacks this pain. Accessible tool: A mobile application is a democratic and direct way to reach the target audience, which uses smartphones in everyday life. The choice of React Native allows the application to be compatible with several platforms, expanding its reach. Practical Learning: The interactive chat and, especially, the mini-game "Is it Fact or Fake?" and the learning modules offer a practical and gamified experience of how to identify fake news, going beyond the simple presentation of information. This ensures that the interaction is active and immersive, solidifying learning. Continuous Feedback: The project’s own development cycle provides for "active listening" and "tests with real users", which validates the relevance of the product as it is shaped by community needs. The delivery of the application, demonstrated through slide and oral presentation, was the concrete proof of interaction and value generated for the community, highlighting how technology can be a bridge to digital inclusion and the fight against disinformation.

###Our presentation was very good, we had incredible feedback from our Professor Gilberto Massulo and our classmates. This was our record at the end of the presentation.

Autores

Aliny Ramos	Joel Rool	Maciel JR