Bad News (video game)

Last updated
Bad News
Developer(s) DROG and University of Cambridge
Designer(s) Gusmanson
Platform(s) Browser
ReleaseFebruary 19, 2018

Bad News is a free browser game in which players take the perspective of a fake news tycoon. It was released on February 19, 2018. The game is classified as a serious game and a newsgame aimed at improving media literacy and social impact. [1] The game was produced by the Dutch media platform "DROG" [2] in collaboration with University of Cambridge scientists. The game has been described by the media as a "fake news vaccine". [3] [4] [5] [6]

Contents

Gameplay

The purpose of the game is to immunize the public against misinformation by letting players take on the role of a fake news producer. In the game, players earn "badges", [7] each of which correspond to common techniques used in the production of fake news, such as polarization, conspiracy theories, discrediting, trolling, and invoking emotion. The goal is to build your own fake news empire and gain as many followers as possible while maintaining credibility. The game is based on a psychological concept known as inoculation theory, where exposure to weakened doses of common fake news tactics is thought to help confer resistance or psychological immunity against fake news. [8]

Reception

The game received the 2020 Brouwers Trust Prize from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences [9] and the Frank Prize in Public Interest Communications from the University of Florida's College of Journalism. [10]

The game was on exhibit in the London Design Museum for Beazley's Designs of the Year [11] and the University of South Australia's Museum of Discovery [12] and has been the subject of scientific research evaluating its impact on fake news discernment and recognition. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

Localization

In 2020, localised versions of the game were released for Eastern European markets where Russian-backed disinformation is of particular concern. Debunk.org published multiple-language versions of the game in Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Polish. [18]

Related Research Articles

Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through attacks that "weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies."

Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such checking done in-house by the publisher to prevent inaccurate content from being published; when the text is analyzed by a third party, the process is called external fact-checking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Misinformation</span> Incorrect or misleading information

Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation can exist without specific malicious intent; disinformation is distinct in that it is deliberately deceptive and propagated. Misinformation can include inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or false information as well as selective or half-truths. In January 2024, the World Economic Forum identified misinformation and disinformation, propagated by both internal and external interests, to "widen societal and political divides" as the most severe global risks within the next two years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Mercola</span> American alternative medicine proponent and purveyor of anti-vaccination misinformation

Joseph Michael Mercola is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business personality. He markets largely unproven dietary supplements and medical devices. On his website, Mercola and colleagues advocate unproven and pseudoscientific alternative health notions including homeopathy and opposition to vaccination. These positions have received persistent criticism. Mercola is a member of several alternative medicine organizations as well as the political advocacy group Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which promotes scientifically discredited views about medicine and disease. He is the author of two books.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), formerly Brixton Endeavors, is a British-American not-for-profit NGO company with offices in London and Washington, D.C. with the stated purpose of stopping the spread of online hate speech and disinformation. It campaigns to deplatform people that it believes promote hate or misinformation, and campaigns to restrict media organisations such as The Daily Wire from advertising. CCDH is a member of the Stop Hate For Profit coalition.

Inoculation theory is a social psychological/communication theory that explains how an attitude or belief can be made resistant to persuasion or influence, in analogy to how a body gains resistance to disease. The theory uses medical inoculation as its explanatory analogy but instead of applying it to disease, it is used to discuss attitudes and other positions, like opinions, values, and beliefs. It has applicability to public campaigns targeting misinformation and fake news, but it is not limited to misinformation and fake news.

Natural News is a far-right, anti-vaccination conspiracy theory and fake news website known for promoting alternative medicine, pseudoscience, disinformation, and far-right extremism. The website began publishing articles in 2008 and is based in the United States.

The gateway belief model (GBM) suggests that public perception of the degree of expert or scientific consensus on an issue functions as a so-called "gateway" cognition. Perception of scientific agreement is suggested to be a key step towards acceptance of related beliefs. Increasing the perception that there is normative agreement within the scientific community can increase individual support for an issue. A perception of disagreement may decrease support for an issue.

Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states:

The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fake news</span> False or misleading information presented as real

Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue. Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term fake news was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common. Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information presented as news. It has also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavorable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news includes satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text. Because of this diversity of types of false news, researchers are beginning to favour information disorder as a more neutral and informative term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sander van der Linden</span> Social psychologist

Sander L. van der Linden is a Dutch social psychologist and author who is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He studies the psychology of social influence, risk, human judgment, and decision-making. He is particularly known for his research on the psychology of social issues, such as fake news, COVID-19, and climate change.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 misinformation</span> False or misleading virus information

False information, including intentional disinformation and conspiracy theories, about the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease has been spread through social media, text messaging, and mass media. False information has been propagated by celebrities, politicians, and other prominent public figures. Many countries have passed laws against "fake news", and thousands of people have been arrested for spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The spread of COVID-19 misinformation by governments has also been significant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic</span>

Media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic has varied by country, time period and media outlet. News media has simultaneously kept viewers informed about current events related to the pandemic, and contributed to misinformation or fake news.

Disinformation attacks are strategic deception campaigns involving media manipulation and internet manipulation, to disseminate misleading information, aiming to confuse, paralyze, and polarize an audience. Disinformation can be considered an attack when it occurs as an adversarial narrative campaign that weaponizes multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value-laden judgements—to exploit and amplify identity-driven controversies. Disinformation attacks use media manipulation to target broadcast media like state-sponsored TV channels and radios. Due to the increasing use of internet manipulation on social media, they can be considered a cyber threat. Digital tools such as bots, algorithms, and AI technology, along with human agents including influencers, spread and amplify disinformation to micro-target populations on online platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

Misinformation related to immunization and the use of vaccines circulates in mass media and social media in spite of the fact that there is no serious hesitancy or debate within mainstream medical and scientific circles about the benefits of vaccination. Unsubstantiated safety concerns related to vaccines are often presented on the internet as being scientific information. A large proportion of internet sources on the topic are mostly inaccurate which can lead people searching for information to form misconceptions relating to vaccines.

This timeline includes entries on the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. This includes investigations into the origin of COVID-19, and the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 which is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Social media apps and platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, Telegram, and YouTube, have contributed to the spread of misinformation. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) reported that conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 began on "day one". CAHN reported on March 16, 2020, that far-right groups in Canada were taking advantage of the climate of anxiety and fear surrounding COVID, to recycle variations of conspiracies from the 1990s, that people had shared over shortwave radio. COVID-19 disinformation is intentional and seeks to create uncertainty and confusion. But most of the misinformation is shared online unintentionally by enthusiastic participants who are politically active.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renée DiResta</span> Writer and internet researcher

Renée DiResta is a professor, writer and former research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO). DiResta has written about pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, terrorism, and state-sponsored information warfare. She has also served as an advisor to the U.S. Congress on ongoing efforts to prevent online and social media disinformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-vaccine activism</span> Activism against vaccination

Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" movement, is a set of organized activities proclaiming opposition to vaccination, and these collaborating networks have often fought to increase vaccine hesitancy by disseminating vaccine-based misinformation and/or forms of active disinformation. As a social movement, it has utilized multiple tools both within traditional news media and also through various forms of online communication. Activists have primarily focused on issues surrounding children, with vaccination of the young receiving pushback, and they have sought to expand beyond niche subgroups into national political debates.

<i>Foolproof</i> (book) 2023 book by psychologist Sander van der Linden

Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity is a 2023 book written by social psychologist Sander van der Linden. In the book, van der Linden makes the case for an epidemiological approach to studying and countering the spread of misinformation, comparing it to how a virus spreads in the population. Although a broader treatise about the psychology of misinformation, Van der Linden focuses on developing his theory of psychological inoculation against misinformation, which he also refers to as 'prebunking'.

The belief and spread of misinformation occur for many reasons. Although often attributed to ignorance, it can also be explained by other factors such as moral values and motivated reasoning. This is because decision-making entails both the cognitive architecture of the individual as well as their social context.

References

  1. ↑ "Social Impact Game". 5 April 2018. Archived from the original on 10 May 2018. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  2. ↑ "About Bad News". 5 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "Game helps players spot 'fake news'". BBC News. 22 February 2018.
  4. ↑ "This video game wants to be a fake news vaccine". MIT Technology Review. 20 February 2018.
  5. ↑ "Bad News: the game researchers hope will 'vaccinate' public against fake news". The Guardian. 19 February 2018.
  6. ↑ "Researchers have created a 'vaccine' for fake news. It's a game". CNN. 4 July 2019.
  7. ↑ "Fake news 'vaccine' teaches you to spot disinformation". Reuters. 20 March 2018.
  8. ↑ "Spot Fake News By Making It". NPR. 19 March 2018.
  9. ↑ "Brouwer Vertrouwensprijs 2020: Online game tegen fake news wint 100.000 euro voor verdere ontwikkeling". Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen. 16 January 2020.
  10. ↑ "2020 Research Prize in Public Interest Communications". University of Florida. 16 January 2020. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  11. ↑ "Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, the world's first plastic-free shopping aisle, and the SpaceX Falcon Heavyrocket: Design Museum announces Beazley Designs of the Year nominees" (PDF). Design Museum. 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-03-03. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
  12. ↑ "Bad News Game". Museum of Discovery and Science. 2020.
  13. ↑ Roozenbeek, J; van der Linden, S (2018). "The fake news game: actively inoculating against the risk of misinformation". Journal of Risk Research. 22 (5): 570–580. doi:10.1080/13669877.2018.1443491. S2CID   149129860.
  14. ↑ Roozenbeek, J; van der Linden, S (2019). "Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation". Palgrave Communications. 5 (65). doi: 10.1057/s41599-019-0279-9 . S2CID   195329457.
  15. ↑ Basol, M; Roozenbeek, J; van der Linden, S (2020). "Good News about Bad News: Gamified Inoculation Boosts Confidence and Cognitive Immunity Against Fake News". Journal of Cognition. 3 (1): 2. doi: 10.5334/joc.91 . PMC   6952868 . PMID   31934684.
  16. ↑ Roozenbeek, J; van der Linden, S; Nygren, T (2020). "Prebunking interventions based on "inoculation" theory can reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures". Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review. 1 (2). doi: 10.37016//mr-2020-008 .
  17. ↑ Roozenbeek, J; Maertens, R; McClanahan, P; van der Linden, S (2020). "Disentangling Item and Testing Effects in Inoculation Research on Online Misinformation: Solomon Revisited". Educational and Psychological Measurement. 81 (2): 340–362. doi: 10.1177/0013164420940378 . PMC   10621688 . PMID   37929261.
  18. ↑ "Recognize disinformation: after this game, you will be expert in recognising fake news". Delfi. 11 September 2020.

Other websites

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.