Tim Harford komentira novo knjigo “Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity” Sanderja van der Lindena, profesorja iz Cambridga, in se sprašuje, ali se lahko “cepimo proti dezinformacijam”. Obstajajo sicer metode, kot je opozorilo pred člankom ali youtube videom, ki vsebuje teorije zarote. Je pa problem, kdo ima avtoriteto, da presodi ali gre res za dezinformacijo? Znanost, varnostne službe, mediji? Denimo tri leta je veljalo, da gre v primeru teorije o laboratorijskem izvoru Covid virusa za dezinformacijo in te “dezinformacije” so bile sfiltrirane (niso prišle v masovne medije, čeprav je že skupina Jeffreya Sachsa, ki je po naročilu revije Lancet, pregledovala dokumentacijo, ugotovila enako), zdaj pa je na osnovi vseh zbranih obveščevalnih podatkov ameriško ministrstvo za energijo, ki je pristojno tudi za biolaboratorije, v posebnem dokumentu mnenja, da je virus laboratorijskega izvora (ne pa rezultat mutacije virusa iz živali na človeka).

Še večji problem pa je “učinek iluzorne resnice”, da denimo bolj verjamemo v trditve glede nečesa, kar nam je poznano ali če to slišimo od kroga ljudi, ki so nam blizu. In na slednjem bazirajo socialni mediji. Pri čemer se sploh ne zavedamo, kako nam algoritmi ustvarjajo mnenje in pogled na dogajanja, saj se gibljemo v krogu ljudi, ki so bili “okuženi” z enakimi (dez)informacijami kot mi. Živimo v balončkih vrtualne resničnosti enakomislečih. In žalostna novica je, da tudi Sander van der Linden ni prepričan, da obstaja učinkovito proticepivo, pač pa zgolj “koristna”.

There are plenty of people trying to fool us these days — and plenty of people happy to be fooled. Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology at Cambridge university, has been studying the problem for years, and promises to help us “build immunity” to misinformation.

This is a noble goal. But why are we susceptible to misinformation? As Foolproof explains, there are many answers to that question. Consider the “illusory truth effect”, discovered in the 1970s. If you ask people to evaluate the truth or falsehood of a series of statements, such as “potassium is the lightest of all metals” or “Lake Superior is the largest lake in the world”, then they are more likely to rate statements as true if they’ve seen them before. Familiar statements feel true. This is an unfortunate cognitive shortcut; neither example statement is true, and alas you may now start to feel otherwise.

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Still, what really matters is whether his “psychological vaccine against fake news” is effective. Foolproof offers a range of ideas for fighting misinformation, but places most emphasis on the technique for which van der Linden is best known: inoculation against lies. The idea is to “pre-bunk” the false claim by mentioning it and warning against it in advance.

This is not a completely new idea, but van der Linden makes a persuasive case that it works, it lasts, and it is practical. For example, YouTube could run pre-bunking messages ahead of conspiratorial videos in the spot usually reserved for adverts.

Those hoping for silver bullets will be disappointed. Could Rukmani’s life have been saved by technical changes which slowed down the rate at which WhatsApp messages were shared? Maybe. Foolproof explains that such changes are “useful”, four pages after warning that they are “rarely sufficient”. That is a frustrating equivocation; it’s also true. In the battle against misinformation, tools which are useful but rarely sufficient may be all we can expect.

Vir: Tim Harford, Financial Times