A memetic attempt to vaccinate society against viral going fake news

Abstract

Fake news is becoming a bigger threat to our society, leading to polarization and disinformation. De ideas in fake news are dependent on humans for their proliferation. An idea must enter someone’s mind, after which this person can spread it to new people. This is comparable to the way parasitic germs are dependent on their hosts for reproduction. Over the course of evolution, the human species has come up with a multitude of strong defenses against germs. Therefore, in this writing assignment, our defense mechanisms against germs are examined in order to find new ways to protect ourselves against the spreading of fake news. To this extend, four corresponding essential elements in the transfer of both ideas and germs were revealed. In order for an infection to occur, there must be (1)an original spreader or source, (2)some content that is being transferred, (3)a context or medium through which the transfer occurs, and (4)a new target victim that can become the spreader in the next cycle of reproduction. Taking out one of these elements will stop further proliferation. For each of these categories and for both germs and fake news is examined what systems humanity currently has in place to undermine them. After comparison, it was found that for the first three categories the defense systems are strongly comparable. However, for the fourth category it was found that humans actively vaccinate each other against specific germs, but that there is no equivalent in place to structurally defend our minds against specific fake news. To remedy this, an educational program is proposed that relies on the ‘inoculation theory’. This means that children are stimulated to opinionate themselves against common fundamental topics in fake news, such as inequality based on race, religion, sex, or personality. The theory states that since the children have defended themselves once against certain ideas, they will have a stronger internal aversion against adopting ideas containing similar but bigger threats, like in this case racism, antisemitism, misogynism, or homophobia. Therefore, opinionizing children will make them less susceptible to fake news.