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Jigsaw is a unit within Google that explores threats to open societies, and builds technology that inspires scalable solutions. (FROM SITE)
As the world has contended with the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two years, there has been a proliferation of vaccine misinformation. This online trend has had dire, real life consequences. Belief in vaccine misinformation is associated with lower vaccination rates and higher vaccine resistance: a survey conducted by The COVID States Project found that only 43% of respondents who believe at least one or more false vaccine statements are vaccinated, while 70% of respondents who do not believe any of the four false vaccine statements reported being vaccinated. As Covid continues its spread globally, it is the unvaccinated who are paying with their health — and often lives. Belief in medical misinformation represents a significant hurdle for public health efforts to fight COVID-19 through vaccination. Addressing the spread of vaccine misinformation is an important part in the fight against COVID-19. Click below to learn more.
Psychological Inoculation: New Techniques for Fighting Online Extremism
Online disinformation and propaganda have evolved into one of the greatest challenges to the safety of the internet. As part of Jigsaw’s ongoing work to address extremism and misinformation, we’ve partnered with leading experts at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab (PERIL) to explore technological approaches to addressing online radicalization and proliferation of misinformation.
One of the first approaches we investigated was psychological inoculation, also called attitudinal inoculation, a technique to help people resist manipulative messages. We specifically designed this study to test psychological inoculation against common male supremacy and white supremacy messages. Psychological inoculation works by helping people build “mental antibodies” by briefly exposing them to a weakened persuasive message and thoroughly refuting it. The goal is to help individuals better recognize and resist similar misleading messages when they encounter them in the future.