Main content

How to fight fake health news

Can playing a video game ‘inoculate’ your mind against medical misinformation?

Could a video game where you pretend to spread Covid misinformation actually make you less susceptible to real-life fake news?

Fake news, conspiracy theories and misinformation about health can stop people getting vaccinated, which in turn could cause diseases to spread and ultimately result in people dying.

In Sierra Leone, an NGO is educating people about typhoid and malaria by creating audio dramas, and sharing them over WhatsApp.

Meanwhile, a team based at Cambridge University in the UK wants to ‘inoculate’ people, to prevent them from believing fake stories if and when they see them in the future.

Presenter: Jo Mathys
Reporter/Producer: Mark Sedgwick

Image: The Go Viral game

Available now

23 minutes

Last on

Tue 25 Jan 2022 23:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 25 Jan 2022 08:06GMT
  • Tue 25 Jan 2022 15:06GMT
  • Tue 25 Jan 2022 18:06GMT
  • Tue 25 Jan 2022 23:06GMT

People fixing the world on YouTube

Watch stories of people changing their world on the World Service English YouTube channel