Behaviour Change

PROPAGANDA FOR CHANGE is a project created by the students of Behaviour Change (ps359) and Professor Thomas Hills @thomhills at the Psychology Department of the University of Warwick. This work was supported by funding from Warwick's Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

"70 Doctors declare Trump has dementia and is unfit for office."

Fake news is big business.

Advertising companies will pay 'pretend' websites to produce sham news articles, touting everything from evidence of rigged elections to freak accidents (that didn't really happen) to conspiracy theories.

This kind of thing has been around forever.  Even Ceasar trumped up the news he sent back to Rome.

But because many people now get their news from social media, the capacity to propagate crowd delusion is getting all too easy.

Baiting right and left-wing extremists is child's play.  Most people are happy to fall under the bus of confirmation bias, reading and propagating statements that confirm their own beliefs.  

Simply write something that you know they want to hear and watch as social media sends it spiralling into the global consciousness.

"Brexit will make the Daily Mail millions!"

That sounds true enough.  Why not retweet it.

"Scientists say  'Put on your sunscreen and get ready for the next Big Bang!'"

I'm not sure who would be in favor of that, but come on, don't you want to click on it.  (sorry the link is dead, just tweet the headline).

Here's a great article from BBC news showing the kind of future we're all in for if we keep letting social media do our thinking for us.


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