Pre-Bunking
A Strategy for Fighting MAGA's BS
By Bruce Watson
Lie after lie, rumor after rumor, the MAGA disinformation machine proves the old cliche: “A lie gets halfway around the world before truth puts on its boots.” But in the next four years, truth will need its boots polished and ready. Debunking alone is not enough. It’s time for “pre-bunking.”
The term was coined in the wake of the 2016 election, when cries of “fake news” bolstered online lies about all things political. And since 2020, when The Big Lie began sowing mistrust about missing ballots, dead voters, and other Trumped-up conspiracies, pre-bunking has offered hope for blunting lies before they get started.
Pre-bunking is akin to a mental vaccination. The idea is to anticipate misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies and “inoculate” against them before they take root in gullible minds.
“By the time the disinformation is out there, we’re really not going to be able to convince a lot of people,” a Wisconsin Elections Commission official told the Washington Post. “That’s why pre-bunking has become so much more important.”
Pre-bunking uses videos, social media, even an online game to help people detect the age-old tactics of misinformation. These tactics, familiar to most of us but seemingly undetected among FOX News addicts, include: scapegoating, impersonation, emotional and/or divisive language, gaslighting, red herrings, conspiracy theories, and a dozen other garden variety deceits.
By explaining each tactic, then showing specific examples, pre-bunking trains the gullible to be suspicious, very suspicious. Most of us would have balked at believing Haitian immigrants were eating dogs and cats, but. . . With pre-bunking, even a devout Trumper can be taught to think twice.
Pre-bunking will not instantly turn a true believer into a seasoned skeptic, yet studies show significant changes in thinking. In 2020, two British psychologists and a Swedish educator tested pre-bunking with their online game, “Bad News.”
The game first walks players through six scenarios, each demonstrating a deceitful rhetorical technique. Players then compete to set up “fake news” networks, using their Alex Jones tactics to grow their audience.
Before and after playing “Bad News,” subjects were tested on their detection of fake and real Twitter posts. After playing the game, subjects’ BS detectors showed significant improvement. Several other studies have shown similar promise.
Pre-bunking has since moved beyond lab study. In 2022, Google distributed millions of ads throughout Europe highlighting pre-bunking techniques. Last year, Google worked with a prominent “influencer” in Indonesia to teach pre-bunking. Inspired by Google, the European Union has promoted pre-bunking through online videos teaching young people to detect disinformation that plays on emotions, sows division, and as Trump consultant Steve Bannon advised, “floods the zone with shit.”
Twitter, too, joined the pre-bunking crusade. In 2020, Twitter tweeted several “pre-bunks” warning of lies about mail-in ballots. In 2022, Twitter campaigns addressed false narratives about elections in Brazil, global warming, and the war in Ukraine. Of course, on Elon Musk’s rebranded ‘X,’ those campaigns are gone.
Here in the United States of Viral Videos, several cities and counties have promoted pre-bunking. In Arizona’s Maricopa County, election officials recruited Phoenix Suns basketball players to pre-bunk lies online. On a wider scale, the National Association of State Election directors has a toolkit helping local officials promote pre-bunking through videos, infographics, and tip sheets.
So where can you get your pre-bunking boots? Grassroots groups are already on the job. Here are a few:
— “Cranky Uncle” — this game teaches you to spot misinformation about climate change. Available at app stores.
Once you learn to spot the rhetorical deceits behind “fake news,” spread the word. Your own social media accounts might be a place to start, posting links to “Bad News,” “Cranky Uncle,” or Indivisible’s Truth Brigade.
Next, if you have any Trumper friends or family still talking to you, sit them down — soon — and go over some techniques of misinformation. Remember: it’s not about winning arguments, it’s about helping people think and question.
On into the post-truth age, pre-bunking offers hope for critical thinking, for truth, perhaps for democracy itself.
“It isn’t so much about going back and forth and fighting against every lie that one might see on social media,” said Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State whose BS debunkers worked throughout the last campaign. “It is a matter of being mindful of what misinformation is being spread so that we can make sure to target our messaging.”
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