A social media campaign aims to build resilience against narratives against Ukrainian refugees.
Next week Google subsidiary Jigsaw will launch a campaign to counter disinformation about Ukrainian refugees in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, based on research by psychologists.
Working with Jigsaw, psychologists from several universities, notably Cambridge, have created 90-second videos designed to “inoculate” people against harmful content on social media. The clips, which will be shown in advertising slots on YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and Facebook aim to help people identify manipulation or fakery in the news.
“If you tell people what is true and what is false, many will object. But what you can assume are the methods that will be used to spread misinformation, as in the case of russian propaganda,” explained John Rosenbeck, lead author of the research behind the campaign.
The spread of misleading and fake information in the United States and Europe through social media has led to various governments pushing for new laws to stop disinformation campaigns.
“We see this as a pilot experiment, so there is absolutely no reason why this approach cannot be applied in other countries,” said Beth Goldberg, head of research at Jigsaw.
Poland was chosen because it has the largest number of Ukrainian refugees, she said. And the experience of the Czech Republic and Slovakia will be useful to the rest of Europe.
The campaign will last one month.