Cambridge University social psychology professor Sander van der Linden has created the virtual game Bad News to teach users how to recognize ‘fake news’ and learn the criteria for determining whether or not information is true or false.
The goal of the game is to generate a huge loyal following by producing credible news stories for your online publication. Winning means you have succeeded in becoming a media mogul.
“If you actively have to generate things like stories or reasons or arguments, that triggers a process of rehearsal that allows your memories to encode information in a more efficient way,” van der Linden says. In other words, you learn faster to distinguish between reality and conspiracy.
Bad News is a product of DROG, a team of academics, journalists, and media experts headquartered in The Hague and tasked with building resistance to fake news by immersing individuals in a game through which they experience how and why Fake News works. The group also provides workshops, lectures and consulting and works with the military, businesses, and even young school children.
The chief culprit when it comes to the spread of fake news is Facebook. It needs to step up and get real. With two billion users worldwide – and over half the UK population on the platform – it is now part of the establishment and has a moral responsibility to bring in stringent safeguards and take down fake news. Let’s be clear, it is a publisher not a carrier of information. Similarly, other social media giants need to be held to greater account when it comes to taking down bots and fake accounts that rapidly spread fake news. The reality is that we are now in a situation where people are unwittingly spreading falsehoods. The government must wake up to the danger of fake news before its too late (The Spectator)
Despite the fact that Facebook has made changes to its newsfeed algorithms, it has not yet implemented a strategy to prevent people from sharing false news. A recent article in YourNewsWire story, which falsely claimed the Center for Disease Control was warning numerous people had died from the flu vaccine, received more than 176,000 engagements on Facebook. (A dangerous fake news story about flu shots spread like a virus on Facebook)
Cognitive Ability and Vulnerability to Fake News
Some individuals are not as adept as others at clearing information from their minds. The resulting ‘mental clutter’ makes it more difficult for them to separate fact from fiction. The ability to clear unrelevant information from one’s mind decreases as we age, making older people more likely to be prone to accept fake news as truths.
“Truthiness”. More highly educated people have developed the cognitive abilities to ‘monitor’ and ‘regulate’ thinking to distinguish fake news from fiction and can regulate their thinking with skillsets to protect them from campaigns to spread disinformation.
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (ILFA) has created an infographic of eight steps to follow in determining the veracity of any information you come across. The illustration uses information from Factcheck’s article How to Spot Fake News.
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