Warning – disinformation! – Public attitudes towards psychological defence
Publish date: 2022-03-23
Report number: FOI-R--5264--SE
Pages: 43
Written in: Swedish
Keywords:
- psychological defence
- information influence
- misinformation
- disinformation
- social media
Abstract
This report presents results from an opinion survey on information influence and psychological defence carried out by the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) and Statistics Sweden (SCB), during spring 2020. The survey tested four different variants of countering misinformation on social media platforms. This report provides univariate statistical analysis of the survey's results in order to make these accessible to the public. Initially, respondents were presented with four fictitious social media posts, constructed for the survey. Two of these were later corrected by a fictive state agency in four different ways: Type A correction used humour or satire to reduce the credibility of the misinformation. Type B correction provided only a visual warning that the content may consist of disinformation. Type C correction provided a fact-based response to the content, and type D emphasised the importance of source criticism and awareness. Type C and D corrections were most appreciated. This highlights the expectation on authorities to communicate objectively and in a transparent way. The results show the need for further research on different audiences that could provide more specific results as could real-time cognitive experiments.