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Google Study Finds Psychological 'Inoculation' Can Improve Resistance to Misinformation (seattletimes.com) 173

Are there better ways to fight misinformation? "Researchers at Google, the University of Cambridge and the University of Bristol tested a different approach that tries to undermine misinformation before people see it," reports the New York Times. (Alternate URL here.)

Instead of using the term "debunking," they're calling it "pre-bunking...." The researchers found that psychologically "inoculating" internet users against lies and conspiracy theories — by pre-emptively showing them videos about the tactics behind misinformation — made people more skeptical of falsehoods afterward, according to an academic paper published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday.... The users were taught about tactics such as scapegoating and deliberate incoherence, or the use of conflicting explanations to assert that something is true, so that they could spot lies. Researchers tested some participants within 24 hours of seeing a pre-bunk video and found a 5 percent increase in their ability to recognize misinformation techniques.

One video opens with a mournful piano tune and a little girl grasping a teddy bear, as a narrator says, "What happens next will make you tear up." Then the narrator explains that emotional content compels people to pay more attention than they otherwise would, and that fear-mongering and appeals to outrage are keys to spreading moral and political ideas on social media. The video offers examples, such as headlines that describe a "horrific" accident instead of a "serious" one, before reminding viewers that if something they see makes them angry, "someone may be pulling your strings."

Beth Goldberg, one of the paper's authors and the head of research and development at Jigsaw, a technology incubator within Google, said in an interview that pre-bunking leaned into people's innate desire to not be duped. "This is one of the few misinformation interventions that I've seen at least that has worked not just across the conspiratorial spectrum but across the political spectrum," Ms. Goldberg said.

Jigsaw will start a pre-bunking ad campaign on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok at the end of August for users in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, meant to head off fear-mongering about Ukrainian refugees who entered those countries after Russia invaded Ukraine. It will be done in concert with local fact checkers, academics and disinformation experts. The researchers don't have plans for similar pre-bunking videos ahead of the midterm elections in the United States, but they are hoping other tech companies and civil groups will use their research as a template for addressing misinformation....

The effects of pre-bunking last for only between a few days and a month.... The researchers wrote that pre-bunking worked like medical immunization: "Pre-emptively warning and exposing people to weakened doses of misinformation can cultivate 'mental antibodies' against fake news."

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Google Study Finds Psychological 'Inoculation' Can Improve Resistance to Misinformation

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  • Misinformation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:53AM (#62827873)

    1. Sensationalized headlines that are stating simple facts devoid of context that are ultimately meaningless
    2. Relying on anonymous, uncorroborated sources
    3. Reporting on someone else's reporting without any additional fact-checking
    4. Reporting on videos posted to the internet without any additional fact-checking
    5. Reporting on anything with barely any fact-checking at all

    Unfortunately, nearly all major news outlets are guilty of doing all of the above fairly consistently. The Washington Post ran an article a few months ago that required multiple retractions and clarifications in a single day because, apparently, the reporter, fact-checkers and editor couldn't be bothered to do even basic checking.

    The news is broken. The thing is, I think it's always been broken, it's just easier to check on reporting these days, and it's easier for people to counter what reporters have to say if they get things wrong, or flat-out lie.

    • The news is broken.

      How about the news is imperfect like most things where humans are invovled. I follow a number of international and local main stream news outlets and as long as I use my critical thinking muscles, I feel like I get an acceptable version of what is happening in the world. In regard to your WaPo example, yes people reporting breaking news sometimes get it wrong (and sometimes very wrong) in the rush to get out the news. However, the errors are typically corrected promptly and the people who made the mistak

    • Not sure if you're young or if you want paying attention but what broke the news was 24/7 cable news networks. That required there to be news 24/7. It also made them vastly more profitable by expanding their reach and Drew in wealthy plutocrats. From there we saw antitrust laws repealed that allowed those plutocrats to buy up every radio and TV station consolidating them into the modern propaganda networks we know and hate today.

      There's also the entire story of the birth of Fox News as a wholly owned subs
    • > The news is broken.

      Not for the people funding it. That will remain invariant.

    • A graveyard for buried stories: Hunter Biden laptop, Epstein's Island, vaccine actual outcomes and long term effects, Kamala Harris's prosecution record, the efficacy of therapeutics for Covid and the effect of obesity and poor health on Covid outcomes, the US involvement in the bombing of Yemen, the Panama papers... So many of these will be filed under "conspiracy theory" by professional skeptics and their many followers. There are many more, this is just off the top of my head. All of them 6 feet unde
      • Killing of Khashoggi
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by narcc ( 412956 )

          I'm familiar with just about all of the right-wing fever dreams around all of those things except this one. That Kashoggi was murdered, on the orders of Salman, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is a simple fact that I didn't think was in dispute in any way. What's the big secret that you "think" is being covered up?

    • There's a problem for 3, 4, and 5 in that "fact checking" these days often refers to the process of sitting on the shitter trawling Facebook for affirmative posts on the topic.

      People genuinely believe they are fact checking when they look up one piece of misinformation that agrees with another. You could see that quite clearly during COVID-19 and the fact that people *still to this day* point to all manner of questionable sources showing ivermectin is an effective treatment, and that despite an overwhelmin

  • Trolling is a art (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:55AM (#62827879) Journal
    So is gaslighting.
    A tactic like they're describing may work, or not. Some 'influencers' are very skilled. Some play the 'long game', vis-a-vis 'QAnon'. Some of them just substitute increased volume (I literally mean 'sound intensity', being louder) because as we've seen there are quite a few dumb people who respond to someone being louder.
    Also, if you've indoctrinated someone from an early age (Catholocism, and religion in general, really, I'm looking at you; also 'we've always been at war with Eastasia') it's nigh-unto impossible with some people to get around the neural hardwiring that seems to create.
    • One that anyone can learn. It can also be taught and you'll find that there are periodic conventions among the primary purveyors of fake news and misinformation to discuss how to do it..

      The key to trolling is to know how to walk right up to the line and get away with it. There's a rather famous story of a journalist who goes into a bar gets a drink and sits down and then two more guys come in and the bartender screams of those two guys for them to get out now.

      The journalist is understandably confused
  • education?

  • Obviously. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:57AM (#62827901)
    Of course teaching people about the mechanics of deception improves their ability to resist it. But if anyone with the platform to provide this education also had the breadth of audience to do so effectively, the issue would already be moot. Unfortunately...

    * The media is for-profit, and therefore fundamentally reliant on minimizing the competence of its audience. The sharper you are, the more work they would have to put into maintaining you as a viewer, so they avoid the problem by cultivating ignorance.
    * Religion is strenuously opposed to any kind of education that teaches critical thinking, and acts in parallel with business interests to cultivate ignorance.
    * Most political ideologies with access to power and influence are authoritarian, and find common cause with business and religion to suppress critical thinking education.

    I highly doubt a corporation so corrupt they couldn't stand to keep using "Don't Be Evil" even as rhetoric is going to implement this kind of education.
    • by bobby ( 109046 )

      Thank you. Lots of good discussion here, but many are somewhat mired in the details.

      When I was a kid we had an older relative who was a "magician". I was totally fascinated by his tricks, and still enjoy "magic" / illusionists.

      The point is, at a very young age I learned that not everything is as it appears. "Don't always believe what you hear" used to be solid foundation for living. I'm not sure how it changed so much. I guess the digital communication bypasses skepticism?

      For me it's the opposite- it's

      • The best way to not be drained by the sheer volume of nonsense is to have a "first principles" strategy: Just recognize common methods of deception and dismiss sources that rely on them. Anything more clever than basic weaponized fallacy is pretty rare, and even that can be neutralized with just a few extra seconds of thought by asking "What aren't they addressing?"

        It's a fortunate thing for decent people that liars are so lazy and entitled, because even a slightly disciplined mind is practically a supe
    • * The media is for-profit, and therefore fundamentally reliant on minimizing the competence of its audience. The sharper you are, the more work they would have to put into maintaining you as a viewer, so they avoid the problem by cultivating ignorance.

      I don't think that's how that works. The profit issue for media comes from not from deliberately fomenting ignorance but from chasing viewership. Clarity is easier to explain than nuance. And people will tune in to be outraged. There's still an audience for a good in-depth balanced explanation, but that takes a lot of time and research to do properly and only a few players like the NY Times can afford to do that.

      * Most political ideologies with access to power and influence are authoritarian, and find common cause with business and religion to suppress critical thinking education.

      One trouble with a political ideology is messaging. Internally you want some debate so your idea

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • The profit issue for media comes from not from deliberately fomenting ignorance but from chasing viewership. Clarity is easier to explain than nuance. And people will tune in to be outraged.

        This is essentially in agreement with my position.

        A shallow, unaccountable, gratification-seeking audience is easy to predict and program, while people with long memories and a habit of thinking for themselves are usually too high-maintenance to be worth satisfying. This is especially true with ad-supported media,

    • by Bongo ( 13261 )

      The media is for-profit, and therefore fundamentally reliant on minimizing the competence of its audience. The sharper you are, the more work they would have to put into maintaining you as a viewer, so they avoid the problem by cultivating ignorance.

      I think what I've found in the last 15 years or so, since I started observing a bunch of scientists, researchers, doctors, all of them speaking on the importance of critical thinking, is that the profit and power people have a lot more influence over our instit

      • I have similar observations, although I think any degree of encouragement to free thinkers is worthwhile.

        The key insight to understand these phenomena is that they're nothing special or uniquely human: It's just predator camouflage. Every ad slogan, every propaganda image or corrupt symbol, every clickbait headline...all just degrees of tiger stripes and leopard spots. Someone wants what you have, and has chosen to pursue it by misanthropic means.

        You're definitely not exaggerating to call it evil.
    • I highly doubt a corporation so corrupt they couldn't stand to keep using "Don't Be Evil" even as rhetoric is going to implement this kind of education.

      People elevated that motto to some kind of core organisational goal. It never was. It was a comment made to investors, nothing more. And yet precisely the spread of misinformation elevated that to a position where people are now crying about it.

      Google was always in some ways corrupt. People's definition of "evil" varies greatly. People don't agree on what phrases mean. News at 11.

      • If it meant nothing, then there was no reason for Google to remove it.

        The guilty flee when none pursue.
  • ... that proper education actually works!

    careful what you wish for, though. current elite's comfortable empires aren't precisely the result of populace being proficient in critical thinking. for a reason. can't have it both ways!

  • Also how 4chan works (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ezdiy ( 2717051 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @11:14AM (#62827949)

    It always surprises journalists how /pol/ is supposedly about "conspiracy theories only", yet frequently able to get the scoop. Guys on there are exposed to bs on near constant basis from each other, meaning everyone and everything is mistrusted as a troll or astroturfing, while legible and hard evidence are rapidly followed upon.

    Sure there's a large population of terminally idiotic qanon worshippers, but that just comes with the territory - not everyone makes it through the thick skin training.

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      What scoop? That Bill Gates is somehow tracking them with microchips in vaccines?

      The other day I heard one of your guys claim that Bill Gates was trying to make baby formula as close as possible to breast milk so that everyone would be forced to buy it from him and then he would control what babies eat! I still don't know why they thought this was bad. I'm not sure they had a very clear idea either.

      Speaking of Bill Gates, wasn't he supposed to have been executed at Gitmo by TFG (who is secretly still pres

      • by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

        Seething journo case in point lol. The most recent one would be SD weight leaks from closed beta. If you need more examples of insider leaks history, just look it up.

        • by narcc ( 412956 )

          SD weight leaks from closed beta

          I don't even know what that means. Is this one of your crazy conspiracy things?

          • by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

            crazy conspiracy things?

            Definitely one way to look at [reddit.com] those darn computer things (get off my lawn, toasters!111) that do stuff.

            • by narcc ( 412956 )

              For anyone who wants to know, apparently SD stands for "stable diffusion" which is an "AI" image generator.

              Yeah, I don't get it either.

    • yet frequently able to get the scoop

      When 10000 monkeys throw their poop at a typewriter, you'll find one of them actually produces something that resembles reality. That doesn't mean that you aren't still looking at what can only really be described as a pile of shit. Even peddlers of conspiracy theories are occasionally right. Quite often though it is a pure fluke.

      • by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

        Quite often though it is a pure fluke.

        I'm not talking about qanon here, but the ability to differentiate from trivial bullshit like qanon. Think about it: You're an insider, and have something you absolutely want to leak. Big new conglomerates are not interested, or would delay it for months. Where else can you go?

  • In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @11:18AM (#62827959)

    "Get your disinformation in first".

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      Well, considering this is just about explaining how propaganda works so that people are better able to identify it, I'm going to say that your "summery" doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

  • Great book.

    This explains and provides examples of media manipulation (small and large scale). I pay less attention to some of things after reading that (and I fear the effect the things I'm ignoring have on other people...).

    That and a couple of influence/sales and social engineering books wraps up my theme for 2022 reading.

    I don't want to apply these books to my daily life, just be aware of them and able to identify them going on around me.

    Interesting (at first) and scary (for the remainder of time).

  • Google Study Finds Psychological 'Inoculation' Can Improve Resistance to Misinformation ...

    Psychological 'Inoculation' uh huh. Fucking ingenious. There were times when this was taken for granted, and covered by a broad basic education and by teaching common sense, critical thinking and intellectual honesty before branching off into to a narrow specialization.

  • I find it a little depressing that the study focused on "inoculation" and not critical thinking skills. Yes of course you can stupefy anyone -- even smart liberal people -- with saturation. That's how TV, radio, and internet advertising works. Looking at them you wouldn't expect a moron to be influenced by most of those messages but the constant repetition and reinforcement adds up and takes effect when the target's guard is down.

    What you should be looking for is how people can recover from being dupe

  • by gizmo2199 ( 458329 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @11:53AM (#62828001) Homepage

    > meant to head off fear-mongering about Ukrainian refugees who entered those countries after Russia invaded Ukraine.

    The media or NGOs will always refer to "right-wing" misinformation or "right-wing" protestors. But you'll never hear about left-wing rioters or misinformation referred to as such. Hence rioters in the summer of 2020 were merely legitimate protestors despite the violence and destruction of property.
    Hence these academics/researchers are so far to the left they don't even see how their worldview is anything but the norm. And in fact people that deviate from their beliefs are the ones with the problem, or somehow "victims" of misinformation.

    Here is an example where somehow only someone with the "wrong" ideas would have a problem with a large influx of destitute refugees coming into their country. Because as these NGOs see it open borders are a human right, and the nation-state is just a fiction of patriarchy or something like that. Hence any criticism of these policies must be "misinformation"

  • Most of my education was pretty limp, but I had a teacher in jr. high named Ms. Calvert who clearly actually gave a shit, and one of the things she put into her curriculum was techniques of propaganda. I've forgotten the names for even most of the basic ones, though I can still remember a few off the top (like bandwagon, just plain folks, and glittering generalities) but what's really important is the idea of just being skeptical of how something is being sold, and recognizing that there are established tec

  • Google works to perfect the art of mind control. Yay!

  • that education is the cure for stupidity

  • We used to call this "poisoning the well". I wonder if maybe someone could make a video about the tactic of claiming that anyone taking a particular position is a no-goodnik, to try to inoculate them against that?

  • One form of misinformation is plain old fake videos and optical illusions. Captain Disillusion has been doing educational videos about how those are made for years. Here is one example of his videos about a ghost car:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    I think this is one of those things we should be teaching to kids at school. You know, try to figure out scientific explanation before suspecting ghosts.

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      It's not 2006. That barely registers as a problem, given what we're facing these days.

  • by Growlley ( 6732614 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @03:52PM (#62828439)
    You'll not believe no 8!
  • Unfortunately, this is one turn behind the enemy. They already prepare their audience to disregard the sources that could debunk their lies.
  • ...how not to get caught by the fox? Yes, let's all trust the fox. He's definitely doing this for the common good of us chickens, right?

    BTW, "pre-bunking" is a made-up term for the same kinds of education programmes that the big tech ad agencies have been trying to sell us all along instead of actually regulating them & prosecuting them for false advertising.
  • Can cancel out the "bad" brainwashing.

    Still doesn't help the victims of brainwashing figure out which as which.

    And, can you trust ANYONE who claims ANY brainwashing is "good"?

  • by byromaniac ( 8103402 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @10:19PM (#62828943)
    Yes, really! One result of Trump's election that I'm grateful for was prodding me out of the left-wing bubble. I vividly recall seeing the 2016 results and thinking "WTF are those voters thinking!!!" Most of my friends explained that Trump voters were obviously all immoral idiots, but this didn't fit with those I was acquainted with and I'm skeptical of beliefs which so cleanly fit common cognitive biases like attribution error. I remembered some old advice from Bill Clinton, that "if you want to understand the Right, pinch your nose and watch Fox News." So, I did. And, it stank.

    But, I'd regularly skim Fox, and after a while I started to really understand the bubble, and how if that's all you watched, and everyone around did the same, then you'd probably think Trump was great. Fox regularly sang his praises, hardly criticized his BS, and ran stories about illegal immigrants committing violent crimes, etc..

    As I continued to watch Fox, the techniques [wikipedia.org] employed to manipulate their viewers became very obvious to me. What I hadn't expected, was that I also started to notice those same techniques employed by media I had previously considered neutral (NYT, Reuters, etc..).

    So, I'd highly recommend spending some quality time with garbage news you disagree with. E.g. if you lean liberal watch Fox, if you lean conservative read the Huff Post, etc... When it's not your biases being targeted, the fallacies are easier to catch, and its good training for scrutinizing media that does target you.
  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday August 27, 2022 @11:32PM (#62829023)

    pre-emptively showing them videos about the tactics behind misinformation

    ... but I wonder who's appeals to emotions will be undermined first. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing that one lonely polar bear sitting on a little iceberg. Or the poor salmon staring up at an impassible dam. When people start seeing this sort of manipulation for what it is, they might just overlook the logical arguments behind the claims, figuring that this side has run out of evidence upon which to base their claims and now has to go for the emotional hook.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism; if you steal from many it's research. -- Wilson Mizner

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