Strategies to Address Unfounded Election Claims

Good news for democracy and countering misinformation: prebunking and credible source corrections increase election credibility. Check out our new study published by Science Advances: https://lnkd.in/e5CPQ3fW In this research project, we employed survey experiments with thousands of participants and focused on the so-called "electoral fraud" in the United States and Brazil due to the many parallels we could find in the countries, including false allegations by Trump and Bolsonaro when they tried to be reelected for the first time (2020 and 2022). Both in Brazil and the United States, credible sources and prebunking corrections increase electoral confidence and correct misperceptions about electoral fraud. In Brazil, prebunking was the most effective solution. These approaches almost always increased confidence in election results retrospectively and prospectively. What now? Our research suggests that factual information educating people about electoral systems (e.g., explaining how they work and how reliability is assessed) may be the primary way to protect democracy, prevent the spread of false allegations, and even address and correct misperceptions. Big thanks to the co-authors and study leaders, John Carey, Brian Fogarty, Brendan Nyhan & Jason Reifler. Centre for Media and Journalism Studies (RUG)

Just arrived in Alabama, where I'm speaking tomorrow to the Rotary Club of Birmingham (a great community, one of the largest worldwide). I'll be expanding on the concerns discussed with Forbes recently: "As the political conventions approach, a storm of misinformation and disinformation will soon flood our social media feeds. But it won't end with summer, and instead, intentional deceptions will rise in the next few months. It could make this election unlike any other in American history. Much effort needs to be taken, suggested Lalka. First, he said, social media companies must take proactive measures to identify and address false content swiftly. 'They should invest significantly today in Trust and Safety efforts, paying top dollar for in-house teams of engineers, policy experts, researchers, product managers, analysts, data scientists, and psychologists,' said Lalka. 'These professionals are society's frontline defenders, collaborating across disciplines to safeguard the integrity of online information. Even if it costs more money now, requiring short-term losses, it's better business in every sense—better for users' experience, better for long-term business value, and better for a free and fair society.' Next, we need to call upon all individuals to take personal responsibility for being more discerning about the information we encounter online. 'Since extreme content spreads faster, we should be wary. We cannot believe everything we see and must critically evaluate our sources, making decisions based on informed judgment rather than fear or anger,' Lalka continued. 'Recognizing that we lack the tools to verify this information, we should remind ourselves: "I cannot take everything at face value. Who made this? Who paid for it? Do I trust this?" — instead of clicking, sharing, commenting, and raging, we should: "Pause, reflect, question, and discern."' The threat of misinformation and disinformation on social media cannot be ignored. 'It demands immediate and concerted action from both social media platforms and the public,' said Lalka. 'We have to be constantly vigilant, and that may feel exhausting, but it's important. As corporate citizens, and as everyday citizens, we all have roles to play in combating the corrosive effects of false information.'"

Attack the problem before / Address the problem after. On the “demand-side” – Arm digital consumers with the ability to identify trusted sources. On the “supply-side” – Guarantee that content has passed through a system of authentication and diversified sourcing. Success for the “demand-side” is a robust #MediaLiteracy education, early and often in the life of a student. Success for the “supply-side” is a dedicated application of critical #journalism functions, both for original reporting, and post-dissemination fact-checking. Both the “demand-side” and the “supply-side” require financial investment in human and technological resources. The beginning of 2025 has seen a tactical retreat from both #MediaDevelopment donors and private sector #SocialMedia firms. If #Elections have consequences – and we have seen that they do over the past year – what political consequences must we live through to see a return of public and private investment in the process of creating and delivering content to voters? Dive into this intriguing research from Greta Arancia Sanna and David Lagnado which lays out a fundamental challenge of fighting #disinformation – One that from the prism of our #InternationalDevelopment world, is a challenge posed by those engaged in Information Warfare, particularly in the #GlobalSouth. Let’s look at this fundamental challenge presented in the research – The Continued Influence Effect (CIE): ✅ Once initial evidence for a claim is discredited, the additional evidence may still reinforce the original belief, making it reasonable for individuals not to revise their stance. ✅ Despite correction, people often disregarded updated information when making inferences about a story. ✅ When a retraction creates a gap in the mental model of an event, individuals may struggle to fill the gap, especially if the correction does not provide a clear alternative explanation for the event's outcome. ✅ While many participants believed a retraction was a correction of an earlier error, a significant portion suggested that it might be an intentional cover-up. The implications for countering #misinformation across the Information Warfare battlefields? 🔹 Source reliability becomes a relevant factor in evaluating contradictory claims when it is made sufficiently salient, for example, by presenting information about the sources' experience and trustworthiness. What does this mean?: To counter the narratives from malign actors seeking to influence vulnerable communities, we require credible reporting, delivered transparently to audiences, presenting not only “The What” but also “How We Found The What”. 👉 Media Literacy = Investing in Audiences 👉 Journalism = Investing in the Content Apparently, it’s all about the Continued Influence Effect.

Disinformation threatens global elections – here’s how to fight back by Sander van der Linden, Lee McIntyre and Stephan Lewandowsky [...] "Given that nearly 25% of elections are decided by a margin of under 3%, mis- and disinformation can have important influence. One study found that among previous Barack Obama voters who did not buy into any fake news about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, 89% voted for Clinton. By contrast, among prior Obama voters who believed at least two fake headlines about Clinton, only 17% voted for her." [...] "The power of prebunking Many efforts have focused on fact-checking and debunking false beliefs. In contrast, “prebunking” is a new way to prevent false beliefs from forming in the first place. Such “inoculation” involves warning people not to fall for a false narrative or propaganda tactic, together with an explanation as to why. Misinforming rhetoric has clear markers, such as scapegoating or use of false dichotomies (there are many others), that people can learn to identify. Like a medical vaccine, the prebunk exposes the recipient to a “weakened dose” of the infectious agent (the disinformation) and refutes it in a way that confers protection. For example, we created an online game for the Department of Homeland Security to empower Americans to spot foreign influence techniques during the 2020 presidential election. The weakened dose? Pineapple pizza. How could pineapple pizza possibly be the way to tackle misinformation? It shows how bad-faith actors can take an innocuous issue such as whether or not to put pineapple on pizza, and use this to try to start a culture war. They might claim it’s offensive to Italians or urge Americans not to let anybody restrict their pizza-topping freedom." They can then buy bots to amplify the issue on both sides, disrupt debate – and sow chaos. Our results showed that people improved in their ability to recognise these tactics after playing our inoculation game." [...] "In short, inoculation is a free speech-empowering intervention that can work on a global scale." [...] "We can all learn how to spot misinformation by studying the markers accompanying misleading rhetoric. Remember that polio was a highly infectious disease that was eradicated through vaccination and herd immunity. Our challenge now is to build herd immunity to the tricks of disinformers and propagandists." #socialmedia #misinformation #dataethics https://lnkd.in/eDZb5AXQ