Psychologists from the University of Cambridge have created an online game that helps players better understand how misinformation is spread.

The game Harmony Square has been developed with support from the United States Department of State's Global Engagement Center and Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

As part of the game, players are recruited as a "Chief Disinformation Officer." Based on "inoculation theory" the gameplay provides a “weak dose” of the tactics that are generally used to spread misinformation.

The game aims to reduce susceptibility to political misinformation in its users.

In the 10-minute game is divided into four levels. As part of the game, “a small-town neighbourhood "obsessed with democracy" comes under fire as players bait the square's "living statute", spread falsehoods about its candidate for "bear controller", and set up a disreputable online news site to attack the local TV anchor,” as per the official release.

Players are taught five primary manipulation techniques over the course of these four different levels. These include “trolling to provoke outrage, exploiting emotional language to create anger and fear, artificially amplifying reach through bots and fake followers, creating and spreading conspiracy theories.

A study detailing the effectiveness of the game which is meant to be a “psychological vaccine” for misinformation has been published in the e Harvard Misinformation Review.

Fake news

"Trying to debunk misinformation after it has spread is like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. By pre-bunking, we aim to stop the spread of fake news in the first place," said Dr Sander van der Linden, Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab and senior author of the new study.

In a randomised controlled trial, researchers asked 681 people to rate the reliability of a series of news and social media posts. Some of these posts were real while others were fake misinformation. Prior to rating these posts, half of the people were given Harmony Square to play, while the other half played Tetris.

For the people who played Harmony Square, the perceived reliability of misinformation dropped an average of 16 per cent. Their willingness to share fake news with others was also less by 11 per cent. Their political leaning made no difference in their decisions, as per the study.

"The aftermath of this week's election day is likely to see an explosion of dangerous online falsehoods as tensions reach fever pitch," said Van der Linden.

"Fake news and online conspiracies will continue to chip away at the democratic process until we take seriously the need to improve digital media literacy across populations. The effectiveness of interventions such as Harmony Square is a promising start," he said.

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