While health experts and government officials fight the spread of COVID-19 on the ground, another equally as important battle is happening online. Mere days after declaring the Coronavirus as a pandemic, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that the world was fighting against an ‘infodemic’ as well, that being that the spread of misinformation regarding the virus can be as detrimental as the virus itself.
With vaccinations beginning to roll out worldwide, the biggest threat of misinformation has become its effect on diminishing trust in vaccinations and medical expertise. Traditionally, online misinformation was dealt with via corrections, issued over social media and news sites – a process which can be dubbed debunking (Maertens & van der Linden 2021).
Alarmingly, recent research has indicated that misinformation travels at faster rates online compared to that of its factual counterpart (Maertens & van der Linden 2021). Furthermore, with debunking’s necessity to repeat (and further spread) the original misinformation when providing a correction, the reliability of debunking and traditional fact checking methods have been heavily questioned.
Amongst experts, opinions asserting a need to decrease the public’s susceptibility to fake news have become increasingly apparent – thus the development of a ‘psychological vaccine.’
In a collaboration with Cambridge University’s Social Decision Making Lab, the Dutch Media Platform, DROG, have developed a series of free-to-play browser games with the aims of increasing public media literacy, and boosting audience’s immunity to misinformation spread online. The series consists of three titles, Bad News, Harmony Square and Go Viral!, each targeting a separate concern of misinformation.
Presented almost as a graphic novel, Bad News was designed as a broad and general fake news vaccine. The title sees the player assume the role of a newly hired disinformation and fake news tycoon, learning the ropes from their superior. The game makes use of diverging text options to test player knowledge and fictional social media feeds to simulate the effects of your dissemination.
While playing through the game, players are tasked with amassing as many followers as possible while ensuring their credibility stays out of the red. To do so, it teaches you several real-life disinformation tactics awarded to the player in the form of badges. By the end of the game, the player becomes well trained in the fine arts of; discrediting, appealing to emotions, group polarisation, impersonation, crafting conspiracies and trolling.
The title is certainly tongue-in-cheek, but the aim of its playful nature is to make audiences more aware of not only the habits of manipulative misinformation merchants, but also their own vulnerabilities.
Structured similarly, Harmony Square and Go Viral! serve to boost player’s immunities to misinformation in regards to politics and COVID-19 specifically. While comparably shorter, both of these games see players entering enemy territory, and learning the tactics manipulative entities employ online, in hopes of better equipping them to spot and deconstruct fake news.
Research later conducted by Cambridge’s Social Decision Making Lab (Maertens & van Linden 2021) found that this form of psychological inoculation (McGuire 1961) was effective in boosting media literacy and warding off information for up to two months. Although unlike the human immune system, the mind is prone to new and differing information meaning cognitive vaccines can easily wear off. The same study conducted at Cambridge identified that after the initial two month period, the benefits of cognitive inoculation could wear off within a matter of weeks.
Unfortunately these aren’t the only limitations these psychological vaccinations present. With Bad News being available in 13 languages, Go Viral! in 10, and Harmony Square in only six, language plays a major role in who can access inoculation. With research suggesting that cross-cultural differences play a large role in increasing susceptibility to misinformation (Roozenbeek et al. 2020) this inaccessibility could be reason for concern.
That being said, this is a well known area of concern. Cambridge and DROG received assistance from the UK government in translating Bad News, and the title still accepts additional community translation at translation@badnews.eu.
As it stands the study of misinformation is relatively limited. With previous studies primarily emerging from, and regarding the 2016 US presidential election (Roozenbeek et al. 2020), the full extent to which it might hinder vaccination progress may not be known. Either way, the prevalence of fake news circulating online is being seen to dissuade individuals from receiving / recommending vaccination.
While pro-vaccination opinions are of a greater number online, research has indicated that online environments are expected to be dominated by anti-vaccination voices in a matter of years (Johnson et al. 2020). With the same research revealing that anti-vaccination groups are afforded more plentiful avenues for expression by online platforms, a public immunised to the spread of misinformation has become a greater necessity.
With methods of post-correction and fact checking becoming inadequate, theories of inoculation are a viable means to achieving a psychologically immunised public. While Bad News and its two companions; Harmony Square and Go Viral! are an important development in this goal, it’s evident that they’re limited in certain regards.
Aside from the many language barriers, the titles do little to cater for those who simply don’t care for playing a game. It could also be said that they have a reliance on using language targeted at younger generations, potentially alienating those who aren’t as up-to-date.
Although it’s hard to fault the games too much. Realistically they’re one tool that can be used in an ongoing struggle. They don’t seek to replace traditional methods of debunking, but rather supplement them by creating a population which is less susceptible to being misled in the first place. While their audience may have certain restrictions, all pieces of media do. Despite their limitations, Bad News, Harmony Square and Go Viral! represent an emerging and effective tool which is hopefully further used in the fight against fake news.
ABC 2020, WHO declares coronavirus COVID-19 a pandemic and warns situation in Iran and Italy could be replicated in other countries, ABC, viewed 13 May 2021, <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-12/coronavirus-updates-who-declares-pandemic/12047598>
Department of Global Communications, UN tackles ‘infodemic’ of misinformation and cybercrime in COVID-19 crisis, United Nations, viewed 13 May 2021, <https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-tackling-%E2%80%98infodemic%E2%80%99-misinformation-and-cybercrime-covid-19>
DROG, Bad News, DROG, viewed 11 May 2021, <https://www.getbadnews.com/#intro>
DROG, Go Viral!, DROG, viewed 11 May 2021, <https://www.goviralgame.com/en>
DROG, Harmony Sqaure, DROG, viewed 11 May 2021, <https://www.harmonysquare.game/en>
Maertens, R & van der Linden, S 2021, ‘A Psychological Vaccine Against Fake News’, Microbiologist vol. 22, no. 1
McGuire, W. J. 2021, Resistance to persuasion conferred by active and passive prior refutation of the same and alternative counterarguments. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 326-332
Roozenbeek, J, Schneider, C. R, Dryhurst, S, Kerr, J, Freeman, A. L. R, Recchia, G, van der Bles, A. M & van der Linder, S 2020, ‘Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 around the world’, Royal Society Open Science, vol. 7, no. 10
Theonewithoutafairy 