Washington, D.C. Google will launch a new campaign in Germany to increase people’s resistance to the damaging impacts of internet disinformation after witnessing encouraging results in Eastern Europe.
The IT giant intends to publish a number of quick movies outlining the methods used in several deceptive claims. In Germany, the films will be used as adverts on websites like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
Pre-bunking is a strategy that involves educating individuals on how to recognize fraudulent claims before they are confronted with them.
According to Beth Goldberg, head of research and development at Jigsaw, a Google incubator unit that focuses on new social problems, “there’s a big desire for answers.”
Conspiracy theories and disinformation are hardly new, but the speed and breadth of the internet have increased their influence. Inaccurate assertions can deter individuals from receiving vaccinations, propagate authoritarian propaganda, foster mistrust of democratic institutions, and incite violence when they are stimulated by algorithms.
Journalistic fact checks are useful, but they require a lot of work, aren’t read by everyone, and don’t persuade those who already have a negative opinion of conventional media. Another approach is content monitoring by tech corporations, but this merely spreads false information further and raises accusations of prejudice and censorship.
Contrarily, pre-bunking films are relatively inexpensive and simple to make, and when posted on well-liked sites, they may be viewed by millions. By concentrating on the methods that make viral misinformation so contagious rather than the false claims themselves, which are frequently cultural flashpoints, they also completely bypass the political dilemma.
These tactics consist of exaggeration, scapegoating, incorrect comparisons, fostering fear, and lacking context. Whether the topic is COVID-19, mass murders, immigration, climate change, or elections, deceptive assertions frequently use one or more of these strategies to tap into emotions and undermine critical thought.
In Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, Google ran a pre-bunking video campaign in the fall of last year, launching the broadest test of the idea to date. The movies examined several strategies used in fabrications concerning Ukrainian migrants.
On Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter, the videos were viewed 38 million times, which is equal to the combined population of the three countries.
Researchers discovered that those who had watched the films were more likely to be able to recognize disinformation tactics and less likely to transmit misleading information to others than those who hadn’t.
The new Google ad in Germany will put a special emphasis on images and videos and the ease with which fake evidence may be presented using them. As an illustration, last week after the earthquake in Turkey, some social media users posted a clip of the enormous explosion that occurred in Beirut in 2020, saying that the video truly showed a nuclear explosion that was caused by the earthquake.
The announcement’s timing, right before that yearly conference of foreign security authorities, underscores increased worries among internet firms and government officials about the effects of false information.
Pre-bunking is popular with tech businesses because it steers clear of politically charged issues, according to Sander van der Linden, a professor at the University of Cambridge who is regarded as one of the theory’s foremost authorities. Van der Linden collaborated with Google on its campaign and is currently providing advice to Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.
Pre-bunking has recently been implemented by Meta into a variety of media literacy and anti-misinformation efforts, the business told The Associated Press in an email statement.
They include a 2021 initiative in the US that provided communities of color with media literacy instruction on COVID-19.
The videos’ benefits ultimately fade, necessitating the employment of recurrent “booster” videos. The films must also be well-made and adapted for various languages, cultures, and demographics in order to keep the viewer’s interest. And not everyone experiences 100% effectiveness, just like a vaccination.
The movies’ impact was greatest in Poland, while researchers determined that it had “little to no detectable effect” in Slovakia. One possibility is that the videos were dubbed into Slovak rather than produced expressly for the local market.
Pre-bunking, however, might assist communities in developing a sort of herd immunity to disinformation, reducing its spread and effect, when combined with conventional journalism, content control, and other techniques of countering it.
It can influence how individuals behave, Van der Linden told the AP. Some people experience symptoms, while others do not. Therefore, if it spreads and behaves like a virus, we might be able to develop a vaccine.