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If you read Mother Jones, you're likely aware of the marvelous benefits of modern vaccines. You're likely also aware of the dangerous epidemic of mis- and disinformation convincing people that vaccines are dangerous. But what if the same tools that are used to boost immunity in the face of infectious diseases could also be used to decrease people's susceptibility to viral fake news—like that Trump won the 2020 election? In a new episode of NPR's Here & Now, epidemiologist-turned-communications researcher Dr. Seema Yasmin explains that people can actually be inured to misinformation through minor inoculations of fake news. "You can expose people to a small and weakened dose of an incoming lie, and then what it does is it actually develops what we're starting to call these mental or cognitive antibodies," she said. "It's like you develop this mental immunity against all the lies and the BS that's out there." In practice, she says, that might look like telling people about a lie before they've heard of it and offering a truthful counter-narrative. So, have you heard that they're putting litter boxes in schools for kids who identify as cats? Or that fentanyl candy is likely to show up in your kid's Halloween haul? Neither is true. My colleague Jackie Flynn Mogensen interviewed Yasmin last month about her new book, What the Fact?, which aims to give teens the tools they need to make sense of misinformation. The Q&A delves further into the fascinating parallels between the spread of diseases and the spread of misinformation. Check it out. —Abigail Weinberg |
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Barr's hitman loses another case and shows Trump's Deep State conspiracy theory is bunk. |
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Dr. Seema Yasmin wants to arm young people with better tools to defend us all against the internet's lies. |
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