New Tool in Battling Misinformation: 'Pre-Bunking'

Soon after the Russian invasion, the hoaxes began. Ukrainian refugees were supposedly taking jobs, committing crimes, and abusing handouts. The misinformation spread rapidly online throughout Eastern Europe, sometimes pushed by Moscow in an effort to destabilize its neighbors. It's the kind of swift spread of falsehood that has been blamed in many countries for increased polarization and an erosion of trust in democratic institutions, journalism, and science. But countering or stopping misinformation has proven elusive, reports the AP. New findings from university researchers and Google, however, reveal that one of the most promising responses to misinformation may also be one of the simplest.

In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers detail how short online videos that teach basic critical thinking skills can make people better able to resist misinformation. It's an approach called “pre-bunking” and it builds on years of research into an idea known as inoculation theory that suggests exposing people to how misinformation works, using harmless, fictional examples, can boost their defenses to false claims. Google plans to roll out a series of pre-bunking videos soon in Eastern Europe focused on scapegoating, which can be seen in much of the misinformation about Ukrainian refugees. That focus was chosen by Jigsaw, a division of Google that works to find new ways to address misinformation and extremism.

Pre-bunking videos, however, don't target specific claims, and they make no assertions about what is true or not. Instead, they teach the viewer how false claims work in general—whether it's a claim about elections or NASA's moon landings, or the latest outbreak of the avian flu. That transferability makes pre-bunking a particularly effective way of confronting misinformation, according to John Cook, a research professor at Australia's Monash University who has created online games that teach ways to spot misinformation. “We've done enough research to know this can be effective," Cook said. “What we need now is the resources to deploy this at scale.” (More misinformation stories.)