Your town is holding a mayoral election  and the stakes have never been higher: the outcome will decide the fate  of a local movement to rely on 100% renewable energy. One mayoral nominee, Joanna B. Greene,  is a champion of this movement, while the other, Stannis Quo,  staunchly opposes it. He’s announced he’ll use whatever tactics  are necessary to win the election. As the municipal cybersecurity expert,  you’re on high alert. Election day is near  and you suspect that Quo will begin pushing false information  to swing the election in his favor. Your job is to inoculate the townspeople  against false information before the election. One of the most effective ways  to tackle disinformation is to encourage people to think  about the strategies used by those who create and spread it. This might seem counter-intuitive—  and potentially dangerous— but as long as you don’t create  a “how-to manual,” active inoculation is an effective option. A study conducted in 2019  used an online game to train people to think like a disinformation producer. When the participants  were next shown the disinformation, their perception of its reliability  dropped significantly. But before you can teach  your own townspeople, you need to figure it out for yourself. What strategies would you employ  if you were Stannis Quo? In order to launch a successful  disinformation campaign, you must use evocative, and convincing  content that will spread quickly and create confusion. It’ll also help to take advantage  of confirmation bias. People are intuitively more inclined  to believe information that supports a worldview  they already have. Many young voters in your town  are in favor of transitioning to renewable energy  and sympathize with Greene. Rather than trying to change their minds, Quo will likely focus  on suppressing the youth vote. If you were him, how would you start? You might create fake user accounts  to spread disinformation on popular social media platforms. You could even make one that impersonates  a trusted figure. From these accounts, you can deliver  highly shareable, engaging visual content, like memes relating  to the imminent election. That’s how you would like to go about spreading disinformation, but what kind of disinformation  would be effective in manipulating young Greene supporters? First, you could direct people to vote  via text, a webpage, or an app, none of which are viable voting platforms in your town. The claim isn’t too far-fetched. An encrypted digital platform could  actually seem safer to young people than the traditional ballot system. Perhaps you could also tell  them that the voting day is one day after it actually is. You could then pair this approach  with a more emotion-driven one. How about vilifying Greene  and appealing to the young voters’ values? You want to share information that taps  into people’s sense of civic duty and makes them feel that the election  depends on their sharing it as widely as possible. Your fake accounts could circulate  false accusations that Greene takes money from local, somehow corrupt  renewable energy facilities; treats her staff poorly;  or abuses stray kittens for fun. These inflammatory claims  could lead people to question Greene’s integrity as a leader and even  initiate further conspiracy theories. After you’ve introduced  these disinformation campaigns, your fake users should keep repeating  them so they stick in people’s minds. Finally, media coverage  would further spread your claims and give them perceived legitimacy. You could message a few local journalists asking whether these rumors are true  and express your concerns. By the time an article comes out  debunking the rumors, people’s experiences of the truth  will have become so warped that convincing them otherwise  will be difficult. A disinformation campaign like this  would pit citizens against one another and exploit their values and fears. You can't personally protect  each individual from disinformation, but you can equip them with the insights  you have— and encourage them to pass  these tools further along. After all, community organizing  is what elections often call for.