CHEAT
SHEET

Coper says while it’s tempting either to mock people and their beliefs, or to cut them off entirely, both will backfire. Cutting people off from their support networks forces them to find others who share their beliefs, and mocking or discrediting means that in order to have to admit they’re wrong, they need to admit they’re stupid to have believed these ideas in the first place – and nobody wants to do that. 

Here’s what not to do, and what you can do instead.

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The Brain and Disinformation

Continued Influence Effect

People continue to believe an earlier piece of disinformation, even after it has been disproved by newer information.

Growing up with an old wives tale like ‘going outside with wet hair causes a cold’ makes you dry your hair even though you know it to be scientifically false.

Illusory Truth Effect

What is familiar is accepted as true, even when contrary to sense (e.g. it comes from an untrustworthy source).

Hearing an advertising jingle so many times you start thinking that maybe you should nip into that store even when you don’t need to.

Confirmation Bias

General term for the tendency to reject information which contradicts beliefs or misinterpret it to confirm those beliefs.

Someone makes a spectacular recovery from a serious illness. A religious person may see it as a ‘miracle’ due to prayer, as opposed to a triumph of medicine.

Backfire Effect

Clear facts that disprove a strongly held belief only reinforce that belief. The reaction can be strong or violent.

Showing a voter negative information about their candidate (e.g. ‘he paid off a porn star’) increases their support for the candidate.

Politically Motivated Reasoning

Our brains are wired to prefer fitting in than finding facts. New information is contorted to fit with the current worldview of oneself and the group they belong to.

Confronted with evidence of consistent global temperature rises, a climate sceptic declares that global warming is ‘overall, a good thing’ for the planet.

Belief Polarisation

People see the same information, which reinforces their opposing beliefs in opposite directions.

I might see David Hasselhoff’s German pop success as an indication of his versatility and resilience, while my friend sees it as proof that he was always a hack. It really depends on your underlying view of The Hoff going in.

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What Not to Do

Don’t negate disinformation

Our brains skip the ‘no’ or ‘don’t’ or ‘I am not’ and only hear the rest of the sentence which you are trying to refute.

I wasn’t worried about the Covid vaccine making me grow horns until you just told me ‘the Covid vaccine will not make you grow horns’

Don’t myth-bust disinformation

Factual corrections are at best ineffective but likely do more harm than good. Repeating the myth makes it stickier and more familiar.

I see a myth-busting article about the Covid vaccine not causing horn-growing, and a week later my brain can only recall the link between ‘Covid vaccine’ and ‘horn-growing’.

Don’t label disinformation

Putting a label on a social media post is a big flag that raises its prominence, provides a badge of honour, and makes people worse at judging other posts.

You are scrolling through your Facebook feed and something catches your eye: the post that has a big label on it. Minutes later you’re drinking bleach to cure Covid.

Don’t amplify disinformation

The ‘Streisand Effect’: trying to suppress something can bring more attention to it. Sharing, commenting, or condemning disinformation gives it more prominence and a leg up in the social media algorithm.

The government bans Milo Yiannopoulos from entering Australia, and the media coverage about what ideas were barred from entry spreads them much further than the university forum he was going to speak at.

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What to do

Inoculate

By being exposed to weakened doses of disinformation techniques first, people develop resistant antibodies.

Playing a game about disinformation then makes you less likely to share disinformation when you see it in the real world.

Prebunk

Warning people about the dangers of disinformation, what to look out for, and who will do it, blunts the impact of subsequent disinformation. Getting the truth to them first is the best defence against any lie.

If I outbid Politician A and put an ad on the front page saying ‘Politician A is a liar’ then his ad which I had relegated to page two would be much less effective with those who saw mine first.

Nudge

Most disinformation is shared because we are lazy, not evil. Prompting someone to think about accuracy before they post can halve the number of shares of disinformation.

I watch another great episode of Bachelor In Paradise and want to rave about it on Twitter. My wife reminds me I’m supposed to be a highbrow author and should probably think what that says about me first.

Deplatform

Removing the worst or highest profile accounts from the social media platforms significantly suppresses the spread of disinformation. It may however just move it deeper underground.

Pete Evans being banned from Facebook and Instagram proves the only thing more insufferable than hearing from Pete Evans is hearing from people who can no longer hear from Pete Evans.

Argue in their value frame

As soon as an argument triggers our identity or values, the brain behaves differently. We can only convince people if we frame our arguments in ways that appeal to their values, not ours.

I will get much further telling those Pete Evans fans ‘We’re both My Kitchen Rules fans, and it will be cancelled for another season unless we get vaccinated’ than I would sending them a WHO fact sheet.

Lower the stakes

We often address disinformation by making the other person have to admit they are stupid in order to admit they are wrong. It’s better to find common ground and model open-mindedness.

I ask someone to tell me more about their reasons for not getting vaccinated and see if I agree with part of any of them. Emphasise those (‘I guess you’re right, I should do my research’).

Take the chat private

The social pressure to conform means we have to take the conversation private if we want someone to admit they are wrong.

When my crazy uncle posts a hilarious meme that global warming is a hoax because it’s cold today, I send him a private message to chat weather patterns, rather than comment on his post.

The Fact Sandwich

If you absolutely have to ever state a myth to debunk it (but please don’t), you need to surround it by facts and an explanation of why it is wrong. State the facts as many times as you can.

I can no longer ignore your ignorance: ‘Cast iron is the best non-stick cooking surface. You may hear other crazy ideas, like Teflon being more non-stick. But that is PR spin, after a month you need a new pan. Cast iron is non-stick forever. It is the best cooking surface.’

Tell a better story

Disinformation doesn’t win because it is false, but because it’s usually a better yarn. Facts don’t speak for themselves, they need to be packaged in a more compelling story than the myths they are trying to dislodge.

Winning over voters in coal mining regions by telling a great story about how clean energy will improve their lives and their children will thrive, as opposed to giving them a set of facts about emissions.

Get to the brain first

This is a race. If you can get to a person’s brain before a falsehood, the truth takes up residency and is hard to dislodge.

Concerned about Politician A’s forthcoming vampire accusations, the target runs front page ads saying ‘I sleep at night and love garlic’ before anyone sees disinformation to the contrary.

Pique curiosity

By engaging people’s curiosity, you bypass many of the brain’s defences to fact-resistance. They will be more open to changing their opinion.

I ask my flat-earth friend: ‘I bet you’ll never guess what the first astronauts said about the earth when they saw it from space’ instead of flat out telling him the earth is round.

Echo chamber

Those spreading disinformation are way more motivated and organised than those who believe in facts. Match the intensity gap by sharing reality with the same organised fervour.

Instead of waiting to respond to your vaccine hesitant friends, you conspire with a group of peers to all share the same article about vaccine safety, and to boost each other’s posts like our lives depend on it. Because they do.