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A University of Cambridge study devised psychological
tools to target fact distortion.
Researchers suggest "pre-emptively exposing"
readers to a small "dose" of the misinformation can help
organisations cancel out bogus claims.
Stories on the US election and Syria are among those
to have caused concern.
"Misinformation can be sticky, spreading and
replicating like a virus," said the University of Cambridge study's lead
author Dr Sander van der Linden.
"The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire
that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come
across it they are less susceptible."
The study, published in the journal Global Challenges,
was conducted as a disguised experiment.
More than 2,000 US residents were presented with two
claims about global warming.
The researchers say when presented consecutively, the
influence well-established facts had on people were cancelled out by bogus
claims made by campaigners.
But when information was combined with misinformation,
in the form of a warning, the fake news had less resonance.
Fabricated stories alleging the Pope was backing
Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton sold weapons to the
so-called Islamic State group were read and shared by millions of Facebook
users during the US election campaign.
The world's largest social network later announced new
features to help combat fabricated news stories, and there is pressure on
Google and Twitter to do more to tackle the issue.
Meanwhile, German officials have reportedly proposed
creating a special government unit to combat fake news in the run-up to this
year's general election, while a senior Labour MP only last week warned that
British politics risks being "infected by the contagion".
What is fake news?
The deliberate making up of news stories to fool or
entertain is nothing new. But the arrival of social media has meant real and
fictional stories are now presented in such a similar way that it can sometimes
be difficult to tell the two apart.
There are hundreds of
fake news websites out there, from those which deliberately imitate real life newspapers,
to government propaganda sites, and even those which tread the line between
satire and plain misinformation, sometimes employed to suit political ends.
Source: BBC
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