Google claims it is stepping up efforts to combat online “misinformation” ahead of the European Union’s parliamentary elections in June with a new “prebunking” initiative. The European elections will likely serve as a dry run for Google’s attempts to influence the 2024 presidential election.
TIME reports that as the European Union prepares for its parliamentary elections in June, concerns about the potential impact of AI-generated disinformation on the democratic process are mounting. In response, tech giant Google is launching a “prebunking” campaign across five European countries, aimed at educating voters about manipulative techniques used in online misinformation.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, attends a press event to announce Google as the new official partner of the Women’s National Team at Google Berlin. Photo: Christoph Soeder/dpa (Photo by Christoph Soeder/picture alliance via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden speaks at the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Conference, Friday, April 19, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The initiative, led by Google’s Jigsaw unit, which was founded in 2010 to address threats to open societies, will roll out a series of short animated videos in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland. These videos will demonstrate common manipulation strategies, such as scapegoating, polarization, and decontextualization, without focusing on specific candidates or parties.
“It works like a vaccine,” says Beth Goldberg, head of research at Jigsaw. “It helps people to gain mental defenses proactively.” The concept of prebunking, which originated in the 1960s with social psychologist William McGuire’s “inoculation theory,” posits that by exposing people to a dose of manipulative techniques, they can become less susceptible to false narratives.
Google’s campaign comes amid heightened concerns about Russian propaganda distorting the election results, prompting the EU to pass a new law compelling tech firms to increase their efforts to clamp down on disinformation. The prebunking ads, set to launch in May, will be disseminated primarily on YouTube and Meta platforms, with viewers invited to take a short survey testing their ability to identify the manipulation techniques featured.
While prebunking has shown promise in previous campaigns, with the share of individuals able to correctly identify manipulation techniques increasing by up to five percent after viewing a video, experts caution that it is not a silver bullet. Jon Roozenbeek, an assistant professor at King’s College London who has collaborated with Jigsaw on prebunking, emphasizes the importance of creating captivating content and managing expectations for behavioral change.
Google’s initiative is not the only example of prebunking in action. The Biden administration has employed a similar approach, dubbed “strategic declassification,” to counter what it claims is disinformation from Russia, China, and Iran by releasing intelligence forecasting potential false narratives.
Read more at TIME here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
