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Countering COVID-19 misinformation through targeted behavioural interventions

The goal of this project is to assess the effectiveness of targeted strategies to fight COVID-19 misinformation.

  • Projects and activities | Last updated: 13 Sep 2024
Behavioural Insights

Context

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been exposed to various forms of misinformation.

The European Commission is taking steps to debunk many of these unfounded and sometimes life-threatening claims:

Goals

This project aims to assess the effectiveness of different strategies to fight COVID-19 misinformation: how can these interventions best reduce the impact and spread of misinformation?

For some people, exposing the poor credibility of the source might work best. Other people might be convinced by an explanation of how the misinformation rhetoric works and by tips on how to spot it.

The project explores how to target different strategies to specific groups of individuals. If applied responsibly, targeting could strengthen the fight against misinformation.

Methods

To reach this goal, we are conducting a literature review and an online experiment.

Outcomes

The insights we generate will benefit the Commission’s overall fight against misinformation.

Latest knowledge from this Project

More information and links
Coordinators
Hendrik BRUNS
Participants
François DESSART
Laura SMILLIE
René VAN BAVEL
Michal KRAWCZYK
Stephan LEWANDOWSKY
Myrto PANTAZI
Gordon PENNYCOOK
Philipp SCHMID
Funded under
JRC Exploratory Research programme
Originally Published | Last Updated

03 Aug 2020 | 13 Sep 2024

Knowledge service | MetadataBehavioural Insights | Behavioural insights for communication
Digital Europa Thesaurus (DET)consumer behaviourCOVID-19disinformationclimate change
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