Gaming against disinformation: game exposes methods in social media

You've heard about it in history, perhaps in social studies too. But working with documentary material cannot only arouse enthusiasm. Especially as you can find a source for every truth on the Internet with a sufficiently long search.

It would not only be important for pupils, but for the vast majority of people, to recognize false information and understand the reasons for it. It's not even just about political propaganda, regardless of the source. Just think of unfounded advertising promises, from slimming drinks to unattainable fuel consumption figures for cars.

A study with over 500 participants now shows that a specially developed computer game is remarkably reliable in helping people to recognize false, questionable, misleading or incomplete news and information as such.

You slip into the manipulative role yourself and manage a virtual social media account. The goal is the same as always: to collect followers, clicks and digital reputation.

Six techniques are used to gain attention:

• belittling direct competitors,
• using emotionalized language to stir up fear, for example,
• creating an "us versus them" situation,
• Feigning expertise, for example medical expertise,
• the good old conspiracy theory or
• disrupt the discourse by trolling, i.e. with irrelevant, misleading or offensive posts.

This allowed the study participants to familiarize themselves with the methods and receive feedback on the success of their messages. The game could be played individually, in groups or as a class group.

The results of the study are remarkable. Between a survey before and after the game, of course with pedagogical support, all participants were able to improve. This means that true reports were more likely to be classified as such and false reports, including the intentions behind them, were more reliably debunked. Unsurprisingly, the playful nature of the knowledge transfer was emphasized positively.

If you want to try your hand at "Bad News" and collect as many followers as possible, you can access the game directly here (there are numerous languages to choose from).