What can we do to reduce the spread of misinformation on social media?

That was the challenge facing my guests on this episode and, having succeeded, they came onto the show to talk about what they'd learned. Evelyn Gosnell and Lindsay Juarez work for Irrational Labs, a Behavioural Science consultancy. On a recent project, they worked with social media platform TikTok, to reduce the spread of misinformation on the platform. By encouraging users to think before sharing certain types of content, they were able to reduce the spread of unverified information.

In the episode, we explore how they went about this, what they learned from the experience and where they see the future of preventing the spread of misinformation. What they share are fascinating insights into a 21st-century human risk problem, that behavioural science can help to resolve.

For more on my guests, Evelyn & Lindsay
Evelyn 👉 https://irrationallabs.com/our-team/?view=evelyn-gosnell
Lindsay 👉 https://irrationallabs.com/our-team/?view=lindsay-juarez

For more on Irrational Labs and the work they do: 👉https://irrationallabs.com/

For more on the broader topic, I recommend this piece co-authored by Evelyn and her colleagues: 👉 https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/17/reducing-the-spread-of-misinformation-on-social-media-what-would-a-do-over-look-like/?guccounter=1

To read press coverage of their work:
👉https://cheddar.com/media/tiktok-prompts-users-when-content-is-flagged-as-misleading
👉https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-warn-users-about-sharing-misleading-content-n1256668