Sander van der Linden

[4.25] Marketing gurus describe the book as “the definitive guide to navigating the misinformation age.” This is one work that lives up to its promotional bluster. As a longtime adjunct college lecturer who teaches media literacy, I found “Foolproof” to be a treasure trove of meticulously researched insights into conspiracy theories, fake news, brain science, biases and the impact that social media algorithms have on shaping viewpoints. I found myself jotting down notes every half-dozen pages. One takeaway: by dismantling the techniques that involve the spread of misinformation, it’s possible to provide some psychological immunity from fake news — a mental vaccine of sorts. True, this book is an undisputed deep-dive into misinformation waters that might be a bit intimidating to readers who are looking for a less comprehensive treatment. I found myself skimming several sections that seemed to be unnecessarily repetitive. But I quibble. “Foolproof” is an enlightening, clearly written review of one of the most important issues in the communications arena. Every reader could benefit from the strategies that are mapped out for developing “mental antibodies” to misinformation.… (más)

Imagine there was a way to prevent Fake News victimhood. Cambridge University psychologist Sander Van der Linden thinks his team has found it. He calls it a vaccine because it acts just like one in every phase of its performance. In Foolproof, he describes the thinking in its creation, the symptoms it kills, the testing they undertook, the quality of the immunity it provides, and the means to get it out there for the whole world to stop the nonsense. A Nobel Peace Prize must surely await if he can pull it off.

The vaccine is a program of communications. It uses strategies like deflating the fake news before it is even launched. And making readers aware of the various approaches and aspects of Fake News so they become obvious, if not annoying. Van der Linden is now calling himself a cognitive immunologist.

One of the important discoveries was less emphasis on the truth, which is difficult to implement, and more on things like the emotional appeal, the conspiracy overtones, the attempt to polarize the audience, and trolling people to demonize them. Hate spreading. Van der Linden says “I’ve found both in our research and over the course of many personal conversations that unveiling the techniques of manipulation encounters less resistance than trying to tell people what the facts are.” Learn from this.

Trolls and conspiracy theorists like to quote experts who have zero expertise in the subject, or world-famous academics - who cannot be named. Sometimes it’s a bogus think tank of one person, and even then they exaggerate its claims. These aspects are universal, and major warning signs. Those who have been immunized can apply them to whatever Fake News comes at them. Van der Linden has a full deck of such signposts.

Here’s the serum: the team created a role playing game called Bad News (still available) for online use. Players portrayed trolls of varying sorts, and learned what their tricks and strategies were by writing posts in their place, according to their goals and characters. Took maybe half an hour, and awareness of Fake News was dramatically heightened thereafter. Researchers kept coming back to the players and found the immunization held. A booster shot refresher helped even more. The vaccine contains a discredited (diminished, inactive, killed) bit of the virus (Fake News), the better to understand what can really knock a user down, and reinforce their immune system to defeat it.

Not everyone is a gamer, so they needed another way to get to herd immunity, which likely means 90-95% of the population, not an easy task. They tried short videos, no longer than a Youtube ad, and it worked as well. It seems people don’t think their way through Fake News, but once they are made aware of how Fake News works, it stays with them and they can pick them out of the news stream. Armed this way, users seem able to identify and dismiss Fake News on their own. That’s big.

The truth problem is very well known; weird and fake news travel farther and faster than real news. His research found that real news took six times as long to reach 1500 subjects in his lab studies as Fake News did. People just naturally prefer the drama that Fake News offers. Real news tends to be flat and boring by comparison: “Falsehoods were 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted than true claims,” he says. Let’s face it: a post proclaiming a petition with a hundred thousand signatures has no chance against one that employs words like murder or hate. Anger and outrage create clicks.

Countering those falsehoods in advance is called prebunking (as opposed to debunking). Prebunking can be as simple as: Look out for news that says… or: Any day now they’ll try to make you believe that... Don’t fall for it. It’s all lies, says the serum.

Prebunking also sports a terrific success rate. It apparently does wonders in combatting climate deniers. It stands in contrast to teaching users the techniques they use to promote those falsehoods, the other half of the battle. With both prebunking and technique awareness kicking in, Fakes News doesn’t have a chance.


He describes how bots will start an argument – both sides— leaving the reader confused and just wanting out. Maybe not voting at all, or not believing some important real news. Plus, with very little retweeting or posting at all, the message gets to millions around the world. Math is the final nail in truth’s coffin.

Microtargeting is a very hot new trend, because a quarter of national elections are decided by margins of 3% or less. Converting individual votes becomes very highly desirable. For all the machinations of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and various shady data brokers (and Van der Linden had first hand experience with them), we still don’t know if microtargeting works in political contests. Nonetheless, it’s full steam ahead. We’re now down to nanotargeting: customizing ads for individual users. The problem, of course, is the other side is doing exactly the same thing.

There’s also an analysis of radicalization. Extremists have a four point method to their technique:
1. A vulnerable target, possibly going through a rough patch or looking for validation.
2. Gaining their trust through messaging and sharing videos.
3. Isolating them from friends and family.
4. Getting them to perform some small act to show their commitment.

Along the way throughout the book, the team gets calls like Batman and the Batphone, from the UK government or the Un5ted Nations or social media giants in the US to help solve some public relations disaster or ongoing Fake News crisis. Even furniture seller Wayfair needed their help when a line of furniture using women’s names led to the absurd conspiracy theory that the names were there for pedophiles to purchase those items because they came with babies in the drawers. And somehow, this was believable, whereas denying it was not. It could have been a lot more interesting had Van der Linden not cut the stories short due to corporate or national security constraints.

In clever title awards, Foolproof gets the trophy. A thing of rare beauty. But the book goes on for way too long. No award for couldn’t put it down-ness. At one point, I realized I couldn’t remember what the book was supposed to be about. That’s how involved it gets. There are way too many studies. And I’m not the only one to be unimpressed. After one such study, Gizmodo’s coverage was:

RESEARCHERS PRODUCE OBVIOUS STUDY ON DUNKING BECAUSE THEY’RE NERDS…
A new report the University of Cambridge confirmed what many of us
have known for years: being a contrarian asshole on social media
is a great way to get people clicking on your posts.


The studies are endless, and ever more granular. They discover the different approaches for convincing someone to change their vote compared to getting them click on an ad or buy a product. To understand it, they use code words like OCEAN, CONSPIRE and DEPICT where each letter stands for a trait that becomes a bucket for stereotyping users. It is a clear example of never wanting to see how sausage is made, no matter how good the end product might be.

All the studies seem to end with the researchers at least “surprised” and more often “shocked” at the positive outcomes. Readers will be treated to an endless description of what the thought processes were, what study requirements are, and the validity of psychological studies in general. However, unlike most studies, this team’s are replicable and the same or better results have been achieved by others doing the same thing.

Pretty much all of the concrete findings are in the last third of the book, which I was afraid of from the forecast in the prologue. Readers could quite happily start with Part III, and go back for the rest if desired. All the salient points from parts I and II are repeated in Part III.

At the end, Van der Linden admits these sorts of inoculations are not new. They go back to Aristotle, and how to destroy your debating opponent, in advance. Lawyers use them in court to deflate their opponent’s dramatic presentation to the jury before they can even give it. That’s not to diminish what this team has put together. Rather, it says these techniques work. Pulling a bunch of them into a longlasting vaccination to combat Fake News is the innovation.

Unfortunately, just like in medicine, getting everyone to take the vaccine is an even bigger challenge. A lot of people seem totally comfortable with all the conspiracies. And can’t wait for more.

David Wineberg… (más)