The University of Cambridge has launched an online game called “Go Viral!” designed to help people identify fake news related to the COVID-19.
Players of Go Viral! take on the role of a hacker tasked with spreading misinformation online about the global health crisis. The online game is designed to help individuals become familiar with the wide variety of techniques cybercriminals use to spread fake news, particularly on social media .
Go Viral! was launched in partnership with the UK and published last week in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Its creators hope the game will make it easier for people to identify and ignore information about COVID-19 that doesn't come from legitimate and verified sources.
The team that created Go Viral! stated that a user only needs to experience the game once to significantly reduce the chances of being deceived by fake news for at least three months.
Dr. Sander van der Linden, the project leader, said that users have difficulty perceiving fake news that appears to them as real news online.
According to van der Linden, fake news can travel faster and be found more easily than real news. Van der Linden also stressed that news control is crucial, but comes too late with lies already spreading like a virus.
Given that users find it difficult to dismiss fake news from their minds even when the real truth comes to light, the game's creators chose a more proactive approach to addressing a growing problem across all forms of media.
Van der Linden said the goal of the team behind Go Viral! is to give users a taste of the methods used to spread fake news both online and on social media. It's what social psychologists call "vaccination theory.
Over the course of about six minutes, Go Viral! players are introduced to various news-spreading techniques commonly used by malicious actors. These include the use of emotionally charged language to create anger and fear, citations from so-called “experts,” and conspiracies for social media “likes.”.
