Kickstarter game teaches players how to identify fake news
The idea of Misinformer is for the player to take on the role of a citizen journalist cracking a conspiracy. You start off as a moderator for a typical dull gardening forum, but things change when a wave of political spam arrives and you have to uncover the culprit.
It's a text-based game which unfolds on a smartphone UI and requires you to identify the truth in a world of fake news and misinformation. Playing the game teaches the skills people need to identify and debunk misinformation in the real world.
The game is being created by Jay McGregor who runs the investigative journalism startup Point. For the sake of full disclosure, here at Engadget we collaborate with Point to produce a feature series covering technology, internet and political issues.
As an ongoing project, real investigations from Point's YouTube channel will be fictionalized and added to the game as downloadable content, so there will be plenty of new material to play and the game will stay up to date with the news.
Sign up for it on Kickstarter.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday July 29 2019, @05:15PM (4 children)
I think you underestimate the average stupidity of someone on social media. And since most intelligence doesn't generalize, it's even more likely that some true idiots will nonetheless have the high degree of social intelligence necessary to singlehandedly spread a story once they have been emotionally triggered by it.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @05:33PM (1 child)
I sadly agree. People who think slavebook is the internet are r e a l l y dumb!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 29 2019, @09:07PM
You'll like this bit I heard recently:
"Oh, I don't really use the internet these days. I use facebook instead."
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 29 2019, @06:15PM
I've thought about the Hanlon's razor aspect, and I think that while there is a degree of gullibility involved, the people most responsible for spreading bullshit knew exactly what they were doing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 30 2019, @12:40AM
If the number of Onion, ClickHole, and Babylon Bee articles I get forwarded is any indication, this is the most insightful comment I have ever read.