![]() Of course, Pasquetto points out, society eventually adapted to bicycles, as it would to the radio, telephones, cars, and so on.īut the digital environment is unique in how rapidly it has consumed our lives, said Kozyreva. Doctors, church leaders, and others thought bicycles morally and physically dangerous for women, who donned bloomers and enjoyed a newfound mobility. Far faster than walking and cheaper than horse and buggy, cycling became such a popular activity that restaurants and theaters claimed it was costing them business. “There was this backlash against bicycles and how dangerous they were and how they could disrupt the local economy,” she said. Historically, people struggle to adapt to a new technology - even to bicycles in the 19th century, said Irene Pasquetto, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. The psychological sciences can be helpful in designing environments that preserve autonomy while providing cues that help rather than manipulate people. ![]() “Human psychology is full of vulnerabilities, but also full of good things,” said Kozyreva. “The idea is to empower people to make their own decisions - better decisions - by giving them simple tools or heuristics, simple rules that can help them,” said lead author Anastasia Kozyreva, a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. ![]() One strategy to combat misinformation is to apply techniques such as inoculation to help people become more resilient digital citizens, according to an analysis published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest last December. The researchers found evidence of political parties and government agencies in 70 countries using some of the same tactics I used against the citizens of Harmony Square - amassing bot followers, creating fake news, and amplifying disinformation on social media. “Computational propaganda - the use of algorithms, automation, and big data to shape public life - is becoming a pervasive and ubiquitous part of everyday life,” write Samantha Bradshaw, now a fellow at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and Philip Howard, now a professor of internet studies at the University of Oxford, in a 2019 report detailing organized social media manipulation. Capitol.Īnd while most of us can likely spot obviously fake news or a meme meant to ping our emotions, many people don’t realize how intensely manipulated the digital world actually is. Likewise, researchers have described how social media’s amplification of lies about a stolen election helped incite the Jan. “Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus and is just as dangerous.”Īcademics and journalists alike have documented how people who get news from social media and instant messaging apps have been much more likely to believe false claims about Covid-19 and the vaccines developed to combat it. “We’re not just fighting an epidemic we’re fighting an infodemic,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, in a prescient speech before the Munich Security Council as the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was racing around the globe last February. It’s a lighthearted approach to a deadly serious problem as the manipulated digital world increasingly intrudes on real life. Indeed, although I was already familiar with some of the strategies, I found that playing the game heightened my awareness of manipulative posts the next time I logged into Facebook and Twitter. Research shows that people who play the games are better than controls at spotting manipulation techniques, more confident in their judgments, and less likely to share misinformation. ![]() The gameplay acts like a vaccine, so the next time people encounter such manipulation in the real world, they’ll recognize it for what it is. The game’s inventors use a psychological concept borrowed from immunology: inoculation. In my role as Chief Disinformation Officer of Harmony Square, I learned about the manipulation techniques people use to gain a following, foment discord, and then exploit societal tensions for political purposes. Departments of State and Homeland Security, psychologists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and DROG, a Dutch initiative that uses gaming and education to fight misinformation. ![]() My beleaguered town is the center of the action for the online game Breaking Harmony Square, a collaboration between the U.S. I thoroughly enjoyed my 10 minutes of villainy - even laughed outright a few times. In the end, Harmony Square was in shambles. Using a fake news site called Megaphone - tagged with the slogan “everything louder than everything else” - and an army of bots, I ginned up outrage and divided the citizenry. One idle Saturday afternoon I wreaked havoc on the virtual town of Harmony Square, “a green and pleasant place,” according to its founders, famous for its pond swan, living statue, and Pineapple Pizza Festival. ![]()
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