Education is not the panacea against false news!

It's been the topic for years: supposedly we all need more education to recognize false reports. But is that enough?

In principle, education is not wrong. What's more, I think any kind of education and training is great. And of course, as an old educational romantic, I also support the idea that education in the area of ​​social media and (whether on shoes or privately) helps a lot in recognizing false reports or not falling for every false report.

But I also have to say very clearly that education is not everything! If we follow this idea, we would be making a serious mistake. Because if we only rely on education, we would conversely claim that only “stupid” people fall for false reports. But that is not the case. This shows that education does not necessarily protect against false reports and is certainly not a panacea.

If not education, then…?

The big question is why people fall for false reports. An important approach here is the level of concern. Whenever someone is affected by a certain situation, that person also tends to believe a hoax. We noticed this as early as 2014, when the many false reports about white vans appeared.

At the time it was said that white vans drove around schools to kidnap children and take them to Eastern Europe. We could clearly observe that parents in particular were over-sensitized at this point.

Whenever a white van drove slowly past schools or kindergartens, warnings about child catchers appeared on social media and in WhatsApp groups. In the end, these vans turned out to be craftsmen or scrap collectors. However, child catchers were not there.

Here it becomes clear that, on the one hand, the meaningful narrative behind it is convincing, but also that the parents' concern led them to believe or even spread false reports.

So it's a combination of both. The plausible backstory plus the bias. And here we can now put the spin on the corona pandemic. The corona pandemic is not just any situation of concern, but a global situation in which we all find ourselves. We look for solutions, explanations or even someone to blame.

Now comes the seductive fake news game! As those affected, we receive solutions from false reports or conspiracy stories. These solutions are the ones we long for. So do the guilty ones.

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Of course, education is also an advantage. Education when it comes to recognizing and understanding certain narrative techniques. Likewise when it comes to understanding certain patterns on social media. None of this is wrong and it certainly makes sense for the future. It's for the present anyway. But the problem with false reports often lies in the situation itself. In people's bias, in their concern and in their perceived concern. Likewise the fear of a situation, but also the hope for salvation.

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Symbol image education, article image by TierneyMJ / Shutterstock.com