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Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab

Department of Psychology
 

The Bad News Game is a multiple award-winning fake news intervention aimed at building psychological resistance against online misinformation. The intervention is a theory-driven social impact game developed in collaboration with the Dutch media collective DROG and graphic design agency Gusmanson.

Badnews1

The game is freely available for non-commercial use and can be accessed here: www.getbadnews.com

The game draws on the theory of psychological inoculation: just as exposure to a weakened strain of a pathogen triggers the production of antibodies to cultivate immunity against a virus, the same can reasonably be achieved with information. Specifically, the game forewarns and exposes players to severely weakened doses of the stategies that are used in the production of fake news to stimulate the production 'mental antibodies' against misinformation.

If you are interested in our research on the game, please find an up-to-date list of all of our scientific publications below (open-access, open data):

Publications

 

Handbook

 

List of Awards

Royal Holland Society of Siences (Winner of the Brouwers "Trust" Prize, 2020)

Frank Prize in Public Interest Communications (University of Florida, 2020)

Runner-up, BX Award Oustanding Behavioural Science Research, UK Behavioural Insights Team (2020)

Honorable Mention, Best Game, Fast Company's Innovation By Design Awards (2019)

Nomination, Exhibit and Beazley's Design of the Year Award (2018).

Nomination, Life Interrupted Exhibit, Australian Museum of Discovery (2018).

 

Translations

In collaboration with the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, The Bad News game has been made available in 15 languages worldwide. You can access the international versions of the game below:

Swedish (www.badnewsgame.se)

German (www.getbadnews.de)

Greek (www.getbadnews.gr)

Polish (www.getbadnews.pl)

Bosnian (www.getbadnewsbosnia.com)

Czech (www.getbadnews.cz)

Dutch (www.slechtnieuws.nl)

Esperanto (www.badnewsesperanto.com)

Moldovan-Romanian (www.getbadnewsmoldova.com)

Romanian (www.getbadnews.ro)

Serbian (www.getbadnews.rs)

Slovenian (www.getbadnews.si)

Russian (www.getbadnewsrussian.com)

Ukrainian (www.getbadnewsukraine.com)

 

Sample of Blogs and Popular Media

Prebunking: staying ahead of the curve on misinformation - OECD

Prebunking: how to build resilience against online misinformation - Reuters

Don't Just Debunk, Prebunk - SPSP Blog

"Vaccinating against bunk: curbing viral misinformation" - APS

A new way to inoculate people - Behavioral Scientist

Can "inoculation" build broad-scale resistance to misinformation? - Google Jigsaw

A Psychological Vaccine against Fake News - Microbiologist

Can you outsmart a troll? TED-ED Video

Could this be a cure for fake news? BBC Future

Spot Fake News by Making it - NPR

CNN Interview with Dr Jon Roozenbeek (TV)

The Economist with Dr van der Linden (Documentary)

PNAS - Finding a vaccine for misinformation

British Psychological Society - Vaccinating against viruses of the mind

Churchill College - Pre-bunking: the first line of defence?

 

Collaborations

We have worked with the following partners on testing and implementing our interventions worldwide:

WhatsApp/Facebook (Join this Group)

Google/Jigsaw (inoculation.science videos)

The U.S. State Department (Harmony Square & Cat Park)

The UK Foreign Office (Bad News)

The UK Cabinet Office, WHO, and UN (GoViral!)

The Behavioural Insights Team

 

If you are interested in translating or working with the Bad News game, please contact Dr or Prof for more information.