Election officials and researchers from Arizona to Taiwan are adopting a radical playbook to stop falsehoods about voting before they spread online, amid fears that traditional strategies to battle misinformation are insufficient in a
Prebunking draws inspiration from “inoculation theory,” which was developed by the social psychologist William J. McGuire in the 1960s. McGuire posited that you could prepare people to reject a misguided argument by first exposing them to a weakened form of that argument, along with a strong refutation of it — sort of like a vaccine for the mind. Then when people encounter that argument in the wild, the theory goes, they recognize it and are less likely to fall for it.
Still, such proactive strategies saw success in Taiwan, where officials launched a campaign ahead of the January election to educate the public about the rise of AI-manipulated videos and audio. Despite a disinformation campaign linked to the Chinese Communist Party, the islandBut a patchwork of initiatives is emerging as state and county election officials cobble together their own programs without significant aid from the federal government or social media companies.
Vetterkind, the Wisconsin commission’s only full-time spokesman, said he spends a disproportionate amount of time tackling claims of fraud individually. For example, he said he has responded to numerous queries about undocumented immigrants using driver’s licenses to register to vote. cheaper and easier
Twitter is a prime example of what has befallen efforts to control election disinformation in the United States. Before Elon Musk’s takeover, prebunking was one of several strategies the company deployed to fight misinformation, along with fact-checking conspiracy theories and labeling debunked claims. In the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election, Twitter placed advisories in U.S.