Filipinos who want to protect themselves against disinformation can learn more about it through Bad News, a browser game developed in collaboration with University of Cambridge researchers.
Bad News has players take on the role of a fake newsmaker, teaching the theory and practice behind disinformation techniques like impersonation, emotion manipulation, polarization, building conspiracy theories, discrediting opponents, and trolling.
The free-to-play online game’s objective reads: “Drop all pretense of ethics and choose a path that builds your persona as an unscrupulous media magnate. But keep an eye on your ‘followers’ and ‘credibility’ meters.”
“Your task is to get as many followers as you can while slowly building up fake credibility as a news site. But watch out: you lose if you tell obvious lies or disappoint your supporters!” it added.
Developed as a publicly accessible media literacy tool, Bad News was written with an audience age 14 and above in mind.
It contains minor references to mild forms of violence, uses rude language on a fictional social media network without swear words, and doesn’t feature content that is likely to be perceived as graphically shocking.
Although the game includes some references to real-world events, its scenarios are entirely fictional. It can be played in over 20 languages including English to make it as inclusive as possible to players from different backgrounds.
This multiple award-winning and theory-driven social impact game was made in collaboration with Dutch media collective DROG and graphic design agency Gusmanson. Effectively, it is a fake news intervention aimed at building psychological resistance against online misinformation.
“Scientists who worked with us on the development of this game found that playing Bad News improves people’s ability to spot manipulation techniques in social media posts, increases their confidence in spotting such techniques, and reduces their willingness to share manipulative content with people in their network,” according to the game’s about page.
The game was released six years ago.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently posted about it on Instagram as part of its Global Coalition for Digital Safety program, which aims to drive public-private cooperation to tackle harmful content online amid concerns over the growing influence of disinformation, especially during elections.
According to WEF, the creators of Bad News tested it on 516 secondary school students, who claimed that the game “made them better at spotting manipulative techniques in social media posts and sharper at distinguishing between real and fake news.”
“The team also found that students who had a positive attitude towards trustworthy news sources were better overall at picking out misinformation,” the WEF said.
