Google is attempting to ‘inoculate’ people against misinformation using pre-emptive ‘pre-bunking’ strategies

Strategy more effective at fighting misinformation than fact-checking each untruth after it spreads, scientists say

Google is attempting to “inoculate” people against harmful content on social media by pre-emptively debunking misinformation or conspiracy theories using “pre-bunking” strategies.

The online experiment led by the University of Cambridge in the UK exposes users to tropes at the root of malicious propaganda via short animations so that they can better identify online falsehoods regardless of the subject matter.

In the study, published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday, researchers, including those from Google’s Jigsaw unit, exposed people to 90-second clips designed to familiarise users with manipulation techniques.