Google Subsidiary, Jigsaw Creates Anti-Disinformation Campaign On Ukrainian Refugees

Jigsaw, launched a campaign to tackle disinformation in Poland (photo: jigsaw doc)

JAKARTA - Google subsidiary Jigsaw will launch a campaign next week to tackle disinformation in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic about Ukrainian refugees. This disinformation was revealed based on research by psychologists at two British universities.

In collaboration with Jigsaw, psychologists from the universities of Cambridge and Bristol have produced a 90-second clip designed to "antidote" or inoculate them against harmful content on social media.

The clip, which will be shown in an ad slot on Google's YouTube as well as on other platforms such as Twitter, TikTok and Meta's Facebook, aims to help people identify emotional manipulation and scapegoats in news headlines.

"If you tell people what is right and wrong, a lot of people will argue. But what you can predict are the techniques that will be used to spread misinformation, such as the Ukraine crisis," said Jon Roozenbeek, lead author of the report on research in behind the campaign, as quoted by Reuters.

The research was spread across seven experiments, including with a group of Americans over the age of 18 who watched political news on YouTube. Jigsaw exposed some 5.4 million US YouTubers to inoculation videos, with nearly one million watching for at least 30 seconds.

The campaign is designed to build resilience against anti-refugee narratives, in partnership with local non-governmental organizations, fact-checkers, academics and disinformation experts.

The spread of misleading and false information in the United States and Europe through social media networks has led various government agencies to push for new laws to stem disinformation campaigns.

"We consider this a trial and a pilot, so there's absolutely no reason that this approach can't be scaled up to other countries," said Beth Goldberg, head of research at Jigsaw.

"Poland was chosen because it has the most Ukrainian refugees," he said, adding that the Czech Republic and Slovakia would be useful direction-setters for the rest of Europe. The campaign will last for one month.