COVID-19 isn’t the only thing that spread like wildfire in 2020 — so did the conspiracy theories about it. Misleading claims that the virus was a political hoax or that the vaccines harbor microchips to allow the government to surveil its citizens blazed across social media. By December, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube had banned COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on their platforms. But this flare-up of falsehoods wasn’t just harmless noise.
A survey by the Pew Research Center last November found that 21 percent of U.S. adults don’t plan on getting vaccinated, and remain “pretty certain” that more information won’t change their mind. It’s troubling to think that simply debunking these claims — essentially, exposing them as untrue — is not enough to shift some people’s perceptions. But what if there was a way to prime people to spot disinformation before they see it? In other words, what if there was a way to create a sort of vaccine for fake news?
That’s the hope of Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge. While much of his research revolves around human judgment and decision-making, in recent years he’s turned his attention to the problem of fake news. It’s no secret that information has the potential to spread like a virus online, and disinformation — incorrect information that’s circulated on purpose — is particularly virulent. After learning that fake news peddlers employ many of the same persuasive tactics over and over, Van der Linden set out to “inoculate” people by showing them how these strategies work. Or as he puts it: “Once you know what goes into the sausage, you probably don’t want to eat it.”
Instead of a physical shot, his delivery method of choice is online games. In 2018, Van der Linden and his colleagues launched Bad News, in which players assume the mantle of a fake news tycoon. They’re tasked with impersonating public figures, stoking fear and discrediting opponents to amass as many social media followers as possible. Similarly, in Go Viral!, another project that came out in 2020 from the Cambridge researchers, players use fearmongering and emotionally charged language about the pandemic to make messages go viral on a simulated social media network. Van der Linden’s latest game, Harmony Square, made in partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, tasks the player with using disinformation to pit residents of a small, quiet neighborhood against each other.
Discover recently caught up with Van der Linden to learn more about how false information spreads, why inoculating people against misinformation works and how, exactly, that sausage gets made.
