Go Viral! Cambridge University and UK Government release an online game designed to teach people to spot fake Covid-19 news on social media
- The game puts players in the shoes of someone who shares misinformation
- They are encouraged to ‘post’ increasingly elaborate messages about Covid-19
- Researchers say it can help to demystify the tools used to manipulate people
- They hope those who play the game will be less likely to fall for fake Covid news
A ‘social media’ style game designed to help people spot fake news and misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic has been launched.
Researchers from Cambridge University worked in partnership with the UK government to develop the multiplatform game called ‘Go Viral!’
The browser-based game puts players in the shoes of a purveyor of fake pandemic news and the aim is to build your notoriety amongst other peddlers of piffle.
Developers say it gives people a taste of some of the techniques used to spread fake news so they can better spot – and disregard – such information in future.
A ‘social media’ style game designed to help people spot fake news and misinformation during the coronavirus pandemic has been launched
You start by picking an avatar – between Joel, Miriam, Noah and Aisha – and then begin to build your profile and like or view various social media posts
A study from the team behind the game found that a single play of a similar game can reduce susceptibility to false information for at least three months.
Dr Sander van der Linden, leader of the project and the Social Decision-Making Lab at Cambridge, said fake news travels fast and can lodge itself deeper than the truth.
‘Fact-checking is vital, but it comes too late and lies have already spread like the virus,’ Dr van der Linden explained.
‘We are aiming to pre-emptively debunk, or pre-bunk, misinformation by exposing people to a mild dose of the methods used to disseminate fake news.
‘It’s what social psychologists call ‘inoculation theory’.’
The new game, which takes five to seven minutes to play, introduces players to the basics of online manipulation in the era of coronavirus.
It encourages you to ‘post’ or share a series of increasingly elaborate messages about coronavirus until you ‘get noticed’ by other like-minded people
It acts as a simple guide to common techniques: using emotionally charged language to stoke outrage and fear, deploying fake experts to sow doubt, and mining conspiracies for social media ‘likes’.
You start by picking an avatar – between Joel, Miriam, Noah and Aisha – and then begin to build your profile and like or view various social media posts.
The game then guides you through the process of building notoriety amongst the community of fake news peddlers and conspiracy theorists.
It encourages you to ‘post’ or share a series of increasingly elaborate messages about coronavirus until you ‘get noticed’ by other like-minded people.
Dr Jon Roozenbeek, co-developer of Go Viral! and researcher at Cambridge’s Department of Psychology, said: ‘By using a simulated environment to show people how misinformation is produced, we can demystify it.
‘The game empowers people with the tools they need to discern fact from fiction.’
The game guides you through the process of building notoriety amongst the community of fake news peddlers and conspiracy theorists
The Go Viral! game aims to give people a taste of the techniques used to spread fake news on social media (Peter Byrne/PA)
Go Viral! is based on a previous version of the game which was launched in 2018, called Bad News.
Bad News has been played more than a million times and Cambridge researchers found that just one play reduced the perceived reliability of fake news by an average of 21 per cent compared with a control group.
The research team, including media collective DROG and designers Gusmanson, argue that this neutralising effect can contribute to a societal resistance to fake news when played by many thousands of people.
Recent research published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene suggests that close to 6,000 people around the world were admitted to hospital in just the first three months of this year due to coronavirus misinformation.
The Go Viral! project began with seed funding from Cambridge University’s Covid-19 rapid response fund, and was then supported and backed by the UK Cabinet Office.
The collaboration is aiming to issue foreign language versions of the game across the globe – with the French and German translations already out.
To play the game, go to https://www.goviralgame.com/en.