Google’s Jigsaw subsidiary will next week launch a ‘pre-bunking’ campaign on YouTube in some European countries, aimed at tackling misinformation about Ukrainian refugees.
The tactic, which involves showing 90-second clips designed to ‘inoculate’ people against harmful content on social media, เอ็กทีเอ็ก788 is based on research by psychologists at the universities of Cambridge and Bristol.
The clips will run in advertising slots on Google’s YouTube video platform in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, and aim to help people identify emotional manipulation and scapegoating in news headlines.
‘If you tell people what’s true and false, a lot of people will dispute,’ said Dr Jon Roozenbeek from Cambridge’s Social Decision-Making Lab (SDML), lead author of a report on the research behind the campaign.
‘But what you can predict are the techniques that will be used in spreading misinformation, like with the Ukrainian crisis.’
