Google to roll out anti-disinformation campaign in some EU countries

Workers pose for pictures with a Google brand outdoors their workplace, in Singapore August 23, 2022. REUTERS/Edgar Su

STOCKHOLM, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Google’s (GOOGL.O) Jigsaw subsidiary will launch a marketing campaign subsequent week to sort out disinformation in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic about Ukrainian refugees based mostly on analysis by psychologists at two British universities.

Working with Jigsaw, the psychologists from the colleges of Cambridge and Bristol have produced 90-second clips designed to “inoculate” folks towards dangerous content material on social media.

The clips, which is able to run in promoting slots on Google’s YouTube and likewise on different platforms corresponding to Twitter (TWTR.N), TikTok and Meta’s (META.O) Fb, purpose to assist folks establish emotional manipulation and scapegoating in a information headline.

“Should you inform folks what’s true and false, lots of people will dispute … however what you’ll be able to predict are the methods that shall be utilized in spreading misinformation, like with the Ukrainian disaster,” Jon Roozenbeek, lead writer of a report on the analysis behind the marketing campaign, stated in an interview.

The analysis was unfold over seven experiments, together with with a bunch of Individuals over 18 years previous who watch political information on YouTube. Jigsaw uncovered round 5.4 million U.S. YouTubers to an inoculation video, with virtually one million looking forward to no less than 30 seconds.

The marketing campaign is designed to construct resilience to anti-refugee narratives, in partnership with native non-government organisations, reality checkers, lecturers, and disinformation specialists.

The unfold of deceptive and pretend data in the USA and Europe by social media networks has led to numerous governments pushing for brand new legal guidelines to stem disinformation campaigns. learn extra

“We’re pondering of this as a pilot experiment, so there’s completely no cause that this method could not be scaled to different international locations,” Beth Goldberg, head of analysis at Jigsaw, stated in an interview.

“Poland was chosen as a result of it has essentially the most Ukrainian refugees,” she stated, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia could be helpful bellwethers for the remainder of Europe.

The marketing campaign will run for one month.

Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm; Enhancing by Mark Potter and Josie Kao

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