Google says it wants to inoculate people against harmful content online can it really and look who’s talking
It might seem a bit like hiring the Big Bad Wolf to babysit Red Riding Hood, but hear the case out: Google, through its subsidiary Jigsaw, is launching a programme next week to tackle the scourge of disinformation in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic on Ukrainian refugees. The programme, which essentially comprises 90-second clips designed to “inoculate” people against fake news and other harmful content online, is based on “prebunking”. This is an emerging area of study which looks at whether people can be made resilient against misinformation if they are taught to identify manipulation in content. The idea being that they would be far less susceptible to fake news this way than if they are told that a certain piece of content is manipulated or fake.Google has described the Jigsaw programme as a pilot study that can eventually be implemented more widely. Given how much real-world harm can be caused by content online, this attempt to stem the misinformation flow is welcome — even if that attempt turns out to be only as effective as a beaver dam in a raging river. Still, it should be remembered that the role of Big Tech in the dissemination of harmful content remains under a cloud, despite the work of whistleblowers like Frances Haugen and court cases around the world. Consider the furore that erupted in 2020 when the Global Disinformation Index revealed that Google had been running ads from organisations like Red Cross and Save the Children on Covid-19 conspiracy sites.
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