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Andy’s Quick Hits (280): Yay! “Inoculation” Against Misinformation Effective
Wouldn’t it be great in the current world if we could inoculate people against misinformation. Sigh! But that will never happen. Wait, you say, it can happen, it is possible, it works! Oh, please tell me more!
Yes, very good news on the misinformation wars.
So, what is this inoculation and how does it work?
Teams of scientists from the University of Cambridge and Bristol behind the Inoculation Science project collaborated with Jigsaw a unit within Google dedicated to tackling threats to open societies.
After conducting seven different experiments with 30’000 participants, they found that viewing a single clip increases awareness of misinformation. The videos introduce concepts from the “misinformation playbook” and includes relatable examples from popular film and TV.
This information is effective for all populations groups and political groupings — simply because most people don’t want to be manipulated. Rather than state opinions the videos are neutral just showing the tricks that are used to manipulate people and this is why they are so effective.
So how can this be spread to the world at large. Well, easily, through YouTube with over 2 billion users…
