Internet giant Google wants to combat disinformation about Ukrainian refugees. To this end, the Google subsidiary Jigsaw is expanding a corresponding video education campaign to the German-language Internet. The company announced this on Monday in Berlin. Until now, preventive activities have focused on Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The campaign is based on studies by psychologists at the British universities of Cambridge and Bristol, who developed a concept to prevent disinformation (“prebunking”). The aim is to make viewers aware of the fact that supposedly neutral information is only meant to fool people into thinking something that is not true. A sign of manipulative content is language that moves people emotionally. It is also suspicious if certain groups are held responsible for complaints for which they are not responsible.
Rumors on the net as “pure scaremongering”
For example, a video from the campaign shows three friends meeting and talking in a bar at night. One of them urges her to leave earlier because she is afraid of being attacked in the street at night by Ukrainian refugees. The other two women reassure their girlfriend and point out that most of the refugees are women and small children. They describe the rumors online as “pure scaremongering”. “Some people want to incite us against the Ukrainians fleeing the war. It’s easier to influence people who are afraid of something and divert attention from the real reason why the refugees are here,” the film reads.
Awareness videos in three countries were clicked 37 million times
The educational videos were viewed by nearly a third of the population in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the fall and winter of 2022, said Beth Goldberg, research director at Jigsaw. In total, they were called more than 37 million times.
Fake news portrays Ukrainians as a threat
Goldberg stressed that the main purpose of disinformation stories about Ukrainian refugees was to portray Ukrainians as a threat to the health, wealth and identity of EU citizens. “False stories, often with manipulated videos and images masquerading as legitimate media, have blamed Ukrainians for the ruthless destruction of property, the spread of disease and severe cuts in Europeans’ living standards, although the claimed damages have never materialised. .”
Jigsaw plans to expand the awareness campaign not only to Germany but also to India over the course of the year. We also rely on local partners. Further experiments are planned.
Source: Krone
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