Can a YouTube ad change your mind about disinformation?

Image: Inoculation Science

A new study from researchers at the University of Cambridge suggests that people may be more critical of false information if it isbunked. The study is part of ongoing work in the field of mis- and disinformation, and it is encouraging news for researchers hoping to improve the online information ecosystems.

Several attempts have been made to "inoculate" or "prebunk" people against fake news rather than debunking it after the fact. The video series about common tactics used to spread false information was published in Science Advances.

The 90-second videos didn't discuss false narratives or the validity of a piece of information. They usually used absurd or funny examples from pop culture. A false dichotomy is the claim that "if you're not with me then you're my enemy". To highlight red flags that might short-circuit people's critical evaluation of a social media post or video, then to see if that translated into wider recognition of those tactics. The fact that viewers weren't judging the source of those facts was a result of avoiding factual claims.

Beth Goldberg is the head of research and development at Jigsaw.

After research suggested that fact-checking and corrections might not change people's minds, prebunking has been promoted as an anti-misinformation strategy for a long time. Some of the research is questionable. Researchers are still trying to measure its effectiveness on social media.

Encouraging results were found here. People watched either a prebunking video or a neutral video in five studies. Some of the fake social media posts were used in the video. The people who had seen the videos were better at judging whether the posts used a manipulation tactic and were less likely to say they would share them.

A larger study of around 22,000 people was done on the platform. Prebunking is shown in front of random videos. They followed up with questions similar to the ones described within 24 hours. The viewers performed better than a control group but with a longer gap after watching the video the median was 18 hours.

Future research will look at how long the effects last. There are false narratives about refugees in Europe that are being tested by Jigsaw. Future studies will need to test if other groups respond to the videos because this research was done in the US. Goldberg says that the framing of self-defense is relevant to both sides of the political aisle in the United States. It can be seen that tapping into American individualism. That doesn't mean that it's applicable to a global scope

The results of the study were not related to people's opinions of politics or conspiracy theories. The results of the surveys didn't correlate with the participants' performance Goldberg thought that a high conspiracy mentality meant that you would be bad at fear-mongering.

It is possible that the study stripped out the signals that triggered conspiratorial thinking. Goldberg thinks that we were paying people to pay attention.

A study built on a game called Go Viral!suggests that prebunking may work. A recent study shows the effects of simpler interventions. It has significant limits. Some videos were more effective than others, such as the one on incoherence and the one on scapegoating. The group is still evaluating how long people will keep the lessons they have learned.

Prebunking is not yet being tested to see if it will make people critically evaluate information they want to believe from sources they like. Can we measure in the moment if we can apply that prebunking lesson and recall it a week later when Alex Jones uses emotional language? I don't think we will get closer in the near term. The work opens the door to more research on whether a vaccine is a good idea.