Psychological Inoculation: New Techniques for Fighting Online Extremism

[Nevilledog]

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Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss
@milleridriss
As promised! Some findings from ⁦@PERIL_AU⁩ & ⁦@Jigsaw⁩ study to test inoculation against white & male supremacy propaganda focused on video and memes, w/great team ⁦@MrBrianHughes⁩ ⁦@KurtBraddock⁩ 1/

Psychological Inoculation: New Techniques for Fighting Online Extremism
A deep dive into a first-of-its-kind study to test inoculation against white and male supremacy propaganda.
medium.com
12:23 PM · Jun 24, 2021

https://medium.com/jigsaw/psychological-inoculation-new-techniques-for-fighting-online-extremism-b156e439af23

Online disinformation and propaganda have evolved into one of the greatest challenges to the safety of the internet. As part of Jigsaw’s ongoing work to address extremism and misinformation, we’ve partnered with leading experts at American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab (PERIL) to explore technological approaches to addressing online radicalization and proliferation of misinformation.

One of the first approaches we investigated was psychological inoculation, also called attitudinal inoculation, a technique to help people resist manipulative messages. We specifically designed this study to test psychological inoculation against common male supremacy and white supremacy messages. Psychological inoculation works by helping people build “mental antibodies” by briefly exposing them to a weakened persuasive message and thoroughly refuting it. The goal is to help individuals better recognize and resist similar misleading messages when they encounter them in the future.

In early 2020 we partnered with PERIL researcher Kurt Braddock, who published a foundational study of inoculation against text-based extremism, and extremism and radicalization expert Cynthia Miller-Idriss, to design a first-of-its-kind study to test inoculation against white and male supremacy propaganda focused on video and memes, which are increasingly the medium for such propaganda.

We predicted that inoculated people would experience greater psychological reactance (a combination of anger and counter arguing) when they were exposed to “scientific racism” propaganda — the use of pseudoscience to “prove” the theory that biology is a predictor of culture, ignoring evidence to the contrary. We also predicted that people would report feeling less gratification from extremist messages, would perceive the sources to be less credible, and would be less willing to support groups that promote ideas consistent with extremism.

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[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. I know after I went through

The assemblies of god horror show

I react viscerally to republican bullshit,and evangelical bullshit and conservatism.

I reject conservatism ,fascism and theocracy and anything that has a whiff of that shit
With the heat of a billion suns.