For example, with the false dichotomies video, ‘ inoculated’ participants were 1.95 – so almost twice – as good as the control group at identifying this manipulation technique. While for the incoherence video, ‘ inoculated’ participants were over twice as good (2.14) as the control group at identifying this manipulation technique. Our interventions make no claims about what is true or a fact, which is often disputed. They are effective for anyone who does not appreciate being manipulated,” he said. Google Jigsaw exposed around 5.4 million US YouTubers to an inoculation video, with almost a million watching for at least 30 seconds. The platform then gave a random 30% of users that watched a voluntary test question within 24 hours of their initial viewing.

The beauty of these pants is that they work across all kind of occasions and moods … when styled, they look remarkably modern and cool. Short animations giving viewers a taste of the tactics behind misinformation can help to “ inoculate” people against harmful content on social media when deployed in YouTube’s advert slot, according to a major online experiment led by the University of Cambridge. The stylish wide-leg trousers look fantastic on Kate. She often pairs them with navy heels and a long coat. The trousers appear to have a slightly flared shape (or perhaps, they just look a little flared as Kate walks in them). Researchers behind the Inoculation Science project compare it to a vaccine: by giving people a “micro-dose” of misinformation in advance, it helps prevent them falling for it in future – an idea based on what social psychologist’s call “ inoculation theory”.Despite the intense “noise” and distractions on YouTube, ability to recognise manipulation techniques at the heart of misinformation increased by 5% on average. Two of the animations were then tested “in the wild” as part of a vast experiment on YouTube, with clips positioned in the pre-video advert slot that provides an option to skip after five seconds.

The findings, published in Science Advances, come from seven experiments involving a total of almost 30,000 participants – including the first “real world field study” of inoculation theory on a social media platform – and show a single viewing of a film clip increases awareness of misinformation. We’ve shown that video ads as a delivery method of prebunking messages can be used to reach millions of people, potentially before harmful narratives take hold,” Goldberg said. Harmful misinformation takes many forms, but the manipulative tactics and narratives are often repeated and can therefore be predicted,” said Beth Goldberg, co-author and Head of Research and Development for Google’s Jigsaw unit. The clips aimed to inoculate against misinformation tactics of hyper-emotive language and use of false dichotomies, and the questions – based on fictional posts – tested for detection of these tropes.This “prebunking” strategy pre-emptively exposes people to tropes at the root of malicious propaganda, so they can better identify online falsehoods regardless of subject matter. Six initial controlled experiments featured 6,464 participants, with the sixth experiment conducted a year after the first five to ensure earlier findings could be replicated.