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With the internet and social media playing a significant role in how people consume information, combating misinformation is more important than ever. To address this issue, Google recently launched a new campaign named “prebunking,” which aims to help people identify misinformation and become more resilient against manipulation.
What exactly is Prebunking?
Prebunking is a technique that goes beyond fighting individual instances of fake news. It involves teaching people how to spot false claims before they encounter them. The idea is to use short videos that highlight the techniques commonly used in misleading claims and help people develop critical thinking skills to combat misinformation.
Google first launched the campaign in Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, in collaboration with the universities of Cambridge and Bristol, by distributing the prebunking videos through social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. These videos focused on exposing the spread of false information that was being used to hold Ukrainian refugees accountable for a housing crisis in Poland.
Surveys conducted after the campaign showed that those who watched the videos were up to 8% more likely to correctly identify fake news. Given its success in Eastern European countries, Google’s Jigsaw now plans to expand the campaign to Germany.
However, prebunking videos come with their own set of challenges. The effects of the videos wear off eventually, and companies like Google will need to produce “booster” videos periodically. Additionally, to be effective, the videos must also tailor to different languages, cultures, and demographics.
The future of fighting misinformation could be AI
As Google and Microsoft are developing their conversational AIs with advanced natural language processing algorithms, it’s evident that AI could serve as a potential weapon against misinformation. Given that AI can handle massive data quantities and spot irregularities and patterns that humans might not perceive, companies like Google can design algorithms capable of identifying and flagging fake news articles or social media posts. Such a system could curb the spread of false information and notify fact-checkers to research and disprove the claim.
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