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<\/div>\nChallenging ideas have always faced criticism<\/p>\n
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by Andy Norman and Lee McIntyre<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n A promising new paradigm is taking hold in cognitive science. It employs concepts borrowed from immunology to illuminate the way our minds handle information\u2014especially mis<\/em>information. We call it \u201ccognitive immunology\u201d and think it can transform our understanding of extremism, polarization, and ideological rigidity. Already, the approach is helping democratic nations around the world combat digital influence operations.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Unfortunately, some are reacting to this work in ways that are not constructive. Take University of Sussex philosophy<\/a> lecturer Dan Williams\u2019 review<\/a> of Sander van der Linden\u2019s<\/a> book Foolproof<\/em><\/a> in Boston Review<\/em>. [2]<\/a><\/p>\n [Full disclosure: We are not entirely disinterested bystanders. We are misinformation researchers who collaborate with van der Linden on cognitive immunology-related projects. We think van der Linden’s research program is largely sound. We don’t believe our partiality compromises our assessment of Williams’ review, but readers may judge for themselves.]<\/p>\n In his review, Williams purports to dismantle the central tenets of van der Linden\u2019s framework for fighting misinformation.[3]<\/a> A careful look, though, reveals this critique to be specious. Williams spins a narrative in which today’s misinformation researchers are in the grip of an irrational “panic<\/a>” that “took off in 2016,” when Brexit passed and Donald Trump<\/a> was elected president. According to Williams, this led to a “frenzied search for solutions” and a hasty embrace of the idea that misinformation is akin to a mental virus.<\/p>\n The real story, though, is quite different, for the spread of misinformation really is<\/em> relevantly similar to the spread of disease. [4]<\/a> And as far back as 1961, William McGuire showed that minds can be \u201cinoculated\u201d against unwanted information. [5]<\/a> In van der Linden’s book, we encounter a rigorous empirical account that updates these insights for the digital era.<\/p>\n Van der Linden argues that misinformation and online manipulation have discernible \u201cfingerprints\u201d that people can learn to spot\u2014just as harmful pathogens have biochemical markers that our immune systems can learn to spot. For example, a fake news<\/a> outlet might use the technique of discrediting <\/em>to induce distrust<\/a> of the \u201cmainstream media.\u201d (Van der Linden highlights six tactics: Discrediting, Emotion, Polarization, Impersonation, Conspiracy, and Trolling, and he offers the acronym DEPICT as a mnemonic.) Learn to spot such tactics, suggests van der Linden, and your mind becomes more resistant to manipulation.<\/p>\n Williams replies, reasonably enough, that it is not just unreliable sources that employ discrediting. Reliable ones use it, too\u2014to put unreliable sources in their place. For example, the Economist<\/em> might do an expose of irresponsible reporting at Fox News<\/em>. Put differently, discrediting isn\u2019t just used to push falsehoods; it\u2019s also used to serve truth. Hence, concludes Williams, it is not a reliable marker of misinformation.<\/p>\n It’s true that discrediting is not a perfect indicator of misinformation. Nor is it a sure-fire indicator of manipulative intent. But Williams wants us to accept something far more radical: that misinformation has no \u201cfingerprints\u201d at all. So he tacks on a sweeping philosophical argument: \u201cThere are no intrinsic differences between truth claims and misinformation for the simple reason that a claim\u2019s truth depends not on identifiable features of the claim but on (features of) the world.<\/em>\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n This can look like a telling argument; in fact, it is deeply flawed. For starters, it erects a straw man. Van der Linden is under no illusion that truth is \u201cintrinsic.\u201d Nor does he claim that discrediting is an infallible sign of falsehood. The idea is rather that discrediting is a flag that information manipulation might<\/em> be happening. If your guru tries to persuade you that your family is not to be trusted, you\u2019d be wise to discount his words rather than theirs: He’s probably playing you. The same goes for sources that try to discredit \u201cthe mainstream media.\u201d \u201cIntrinsic\u201d falsehood is a red herring of Williams\u2019 devising, as any charitable reading of Foolproof<\/em> will confirm.<\/p>\n Second, Williams employs a false dichotomy. When he states that \u201ca claim\u2019s truth depends not on identifiable features of the claim but on the world\u201d he implies that it must be either\/or. But the truth of an empirical claim depends on both identifiable features of the claim and <\/em>on the state of the world. For example, the truth of \u201cOur solar system has eight planets\u201d depends on the meaning of \u201cplanet\u201d and<\/em> the configuration of matter near our sun.<\/p>\n Sometimes, we need to examine the world to settle a truth claim; other times, it pays to examine the claim itself. Either approach can reveal the claim to be more problematic than it appears. The same goes for information more generally: scrutinizing it can bring latent problems to light.<\/p>\n Ironically, the title of Williams’s review\u2014\u201cThe Fake News About Fake News\u201d\u2014<\/em>uses a manipulation technique that van der Linden treats at length in Foolproof<\/em>. He calls it the \u201cYou are fake news effect.\u201d Here\u2019s the idea: Scholars and responsible fact-checkers tend to employ careful analysis, judicious reasoning, and neutral language to call out mistakes, as these are signals of objectivity. By contrast, \u201cYou are fake news!\u201d has become a cheap way for bad actors to dismiss inconvenient points of view. Williams should know better: Serious scholars shouldn\u2019t stoop to calling one another\u2014or any serious scholarly work\u2014”fake news.\u201d<\/p>\n Another example: \u201cMost Republicans (or Democrats) are evil\u201d employs what van der Linden calls the polarization technique. You don\u2019t need to know anything about the state of the world to understand that such a claim is polarizing. That fact that it evokes strong negative emotions is another sign that it\u2019s manipulative rather than factual.<\/p>\n Consider the claim: \u201cTrump\u2019s racist policies horribly devastated our country.<\/em>\u201d Although the underlying facts may support the case, you can make the same claim in a more neutral and factual manner: \u201cTrump\u2019s policies have negatively impacted U.S. race relations.<\/em>\u201d Because the former attempts to play on our emotions, we should assign it less weight.<\/p>\n Williams also objects to the inclusion of \u201cconspiracy\u201d on van der Linden\u2019s list of manipulation techniques. His grounds? Some conspiracies are real, hence \u201cthe mere presence of conspiracy theorizing\u2014however we define it\u2014cannot be a distinguishing mark of misinformation.\u201d But real conspiracies discovered through responsible investigation are quite different from the \u201cconspiracy cognition<\/a><\/em>\u201d that van der Linden warns against. The latter, it turns out, involves a rich cocktail of \u201coverriding suspicion,\u201d \u201cincoherence,\u201d \u201cnefarious intent,\u201d and the like.[7]<\/a> Again, we find distinct markers that can help differentiate reliable from unreliable content.<\/p>\n Van der Linden\u2019s view that misinformation has distinctive \u201cfingerprints\u201d is solidly based on empirical evidence.[8]<\/a> A study published in a Nature <\/em>journal, for example, found that misinformation makes use of negative emotions at a rate that is 20 times that of accurate information.[9]<\/a> Its conclusion? \u201cDeceptive content differs from reliable sources in terms of cognitive effort and the appeal to emotions.\u201d The point is that close examination of a claim can reveal it to be problematic even before one tries to fact-check it.<\/em><\/p>\n Examine \u201cAll amphibians are slimy, so lizards are slimy\u201d and you\u2019re apt to notice that it assumes\u2014falsely\u2014that lizards are amphibians. Spotting this can neutralize the argument\u2019s power to deceive<\/a>, and you needn’t touch any lizards in the process. Being mindfully attentive to the properties of the information you consume is fundamental to wisdom<\/a>. Isn’t that the point of the Socratic Method? And philosophical inquiry more generally? Surely it makes sense to be alert to manipulative rhetorical tactics.<\/p>\n Bad actors use bits of truth to construct false narratives. To get from one to the other, though, they almost always employ fear<\/a>-mongering, discrediting, polarizing language, trolling, or the like. Van der Linden offers a practical guide to spotting such techniques\u2014a way to free ourselves from much information manipulation.<\/p>\n Williams does cite one study showing that, sometimes, psychological inoculation doesn\u2019t improve people\u2019s discernment between true and false news.[10]<\/a> He cites another that seems to indicate that (contrary to van der Linden\u2019s claims) debunking is superior to prebunking.[11]<\/a> But these results are cherry-picked. The latter didn\u2019t test inoculation theory as described by van der Linden, and a systematic review of the literature shows that prebunking is<\/em> superior to debunking.[12]<\/a> Indeed, dozens of studies show that inoculation and prebunking work.[13]<\/a> Many such findings have been replicated in the lab, and a field study<\/a> with millions of people on YouTube shows that inoculation can improve people\u2019s \u201creal-world\u201d capacity to distinguish real and fake news.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n Williams dismisses one of van der Linden\u2019s findings as an \u201cartifact of experimental design\u201d on the grounds that the \u201cstories used in the study were common knowledge\u201d to test subjects in the U.S. and the U.K. But the very same findings were replicated by independent studies using different headlines about local news from India.[15]<\/a> Our advice? If you\u2019re going to challenge a top scientist on an empirical question, you\u2019d better have the receipts.<\/p>\n Finally, Williams dismisses as \u201chype\u201d the “viral” analogy that runs through Foolproof<\/em>. In this, he fails to show serious engagement with a remarkably fruitful idea. Mathematical models show that misinformation literally does<\/em> spread like a virus.[16]<\/a> Indeed, no serious computational scientist would dispute that epidemiological models also work to describe information diffusion. None of this means that we all have simple, easily infected minds. On the contrary, van der Linden carefully dissects the psychological literature to distinguish when people are more likely and less likely to be fooled.<\/p>\n In fact, van der Linden devotes an entire chapter to the claim that only a minority of people are impacted by fake news, and carefully takes the reader through the limitations of these studies. And even if it were <\/em>true that not many people are influenced by misinformation, it\u2019s clear that disinformation can<\/em> swing elections decided by small margins. Fake news doesn\u2019t have to be widely believed to undermine democracy.<\/p>\n Weaponized information is as old as time. Now, though, bad actors can \u201cmicro-target\u201d their messaging and populate millions of social media feeds with content designed to be triggering. They can exploit algorithms that amplify \u201cviral\u201d content, deploy armies of bots, and\u2014coming soon to an election near you\u2014leverage artificial intelligence<\/a>. Yet Williams would have us believe that \u201cmisinformation is not widespread\u201d\u2014that \u201cits causal role in social events is either unsubstantiated or greatly overstated.\u201d No cause for alarm here, folks: Just go about your business.<\/p>\n We are deeply disappointed by Williams’s one-sided review. We hope readers will read Foolproof<\/em> for themselves and draw their own conclusions. Cognitive immunology is an exciting and promising field, but it can\u2019t help us if we stick our heads in the sand.<\/p>\n Lee McIntyre, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. <\/strong><\/em>His book On Disinformation<\/a> will be released in August 2023. Andy Norman, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of CIRCE<\/a> and the author of Mental Immunity<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n