Effective strategies to prevent and correct misinformation 14/15
- Raise awareness of manipulative tactics
Helping people recognise common disinformation techniques is a key step in building resilience. Many false or misleading messages rely on manipulation tactics that play on emotions, identity, or social pressure. These tactics are often designed to provoke strong reactions or push people toward extreme viewpoints.
Some of the most common techniques include trolling, where users deliberately incite arguments to distract or divide; scapegoating, which blames specific groups—often minorities or vulnerable populations—for broader problems; false dichotomies, such as framing issues as only having two extreme sides (“you’re either with us or against us”); and microtargeting, where personal data is used to deliver tailored messages aimed at manipulating individual opinions.
To counter these techniques, people should be encouraged to take practical steps. This includes not feeding the trolls by avoiding engagement with provocative or insincere posts, limiting the amount of personal data they share online, and disabling algorithm-driven feeds when possible to reduce exposure to manipulative content. By understanding how these tactics work and taking small actions to avoid them, individuals can better protect themselves and others from falling into disinformation traps.