Intro: This podcast was made on the lands of the Wurundjeri people,
Intro: the Woi Wurrung and the Bunurong. We'd like to pay
Intro: respects to their elders, past and present, and emerging.
Intro: From the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University
Intro: of Melbourne, this is PsychTalks.
Nick: Welcome to PsychTalks, the podcast where we dive into the
Nick: fascinating research happening here at the University of Melbourne's School
Nick: of Psychological Sciences. I'm Professor Nick Haslam, and I'm joined
Nick: by my amazing co-host, Associate Professor Cassie Hayward.
Cassie: Hi, Nick. Great to be here. Today, we're tackling an
Cassie: incredibly important issue, the rise of misinformation and disinformation. Now,
Cassie: this podcast has previously looked at why we can fall
Cassie: victim to conspiracy theories and misinformation way back in season one.
Cassie: But we wanted to zoom in on the developments in
Cassie: the research since then. We've seen how the spread and
Cassie: influence of misinformation and disinformation has only increased, posing real
Cassie: threats to democratic processes, public health, and social trust.
Nick: And joining us to unpack it all is Associate Professor
Nick: Piers Howe, who leads research at the Information and Influence Lab.
Cassie: Piers, welcome to Psych Talks. Um, could you start by
Cassie: telling us a bit about your background, your current research,
Cassie: and I guess what drew you to study misinformation and disinformation?
Piers: Yes, indeed, and thank you for having me on PsychTalks.
Piers: So by training, I am a cognitive scientist, so I
Piers: am very interested in studying, um, information processing and how
Piers: people make decisions. So naturally I got drawn to this topic.
Piers: But obviously, what's been going on in the news and
Piers: um what has been going on elsewhere. For example, last
Piers: year the World Economic Forum listed mis- and disinformation as the
Piers: number one short term global threats, that kind of gets
Piers: your attention. So there's been lots of reasons why I've
Piers: been focusing on this more and more.
Piers: In my lab, the um Information and Influence lab, we
Piers: focus on creating interventions both to reduce the spread of
Piers: false information primarily on social media, but also to try
Piers: and mitigate the harmful effects of mis- and disinformation.
Piers: So perhaps to reduce uh support for undemocratic um practises
Piers: or um even partisan violence.
Nick: So Piers, you're using terms like misinformation and disinformation and
Nick: you also hear about uh fake news.
Nick: Uh, terms like that thrown around all the time. Can
Nick: you break down what they mean and how they differ?
Piers: Yes, sure. So, um, misinformation is false information that is
Piers: communicated without the intent to deceive, though perhaps by people
Piers: who haven't bothered to check whether it's true or not. Conversely,
Piers: disinformation is communicated with the specific intent to deceive and
Piers: the person communicating it knows it's false or at least misleading.
Piers: Um, fake news is not, not a particularly scientific term, um,
Piers: popularised by a certain person and it generally means something
Piers: which is put in a news format but hasn't undergone
Piers: the editorial standards of a mainstream newspaper. So the attempt
Piers: is to try and give something which hasn't gone through
Piers: the editorial process, the appearance that it has to give
Piers: it credibility when it shouldn't receive as much credibility.
Nick: Uh, I thought it was just news you didn't agree with.
Piers: [Laughs] There has been an alternative definition put forward by
Piers: a certain president, but, um, no, that's not its definition.
Cassie: With all of those with disinformation, misinformation, and fake news,
Cassie: one impact that's been talked about is the impact they
Cassie: can have on elections. Well, we're talking about certain politicians. Um,
Cassie: is there actual evidence that election outcomes have been manipulated
Cassie: or influenced, or is it kind of a more subtle
Cassie: impact on population beliefs?
Piers: So there's increasing evidence that coordinated disinformation campaigns can change
Piers: voting behaviour by a few percentage points. So there is
Piers: theoretically the possibility that they could swing a close election.
Piers: Proving that, of course, would be hard because it would
Piers: only occur for a close election.
Piers: However, the bigger threat is perhaps the um decrease in
Piers: trust regarding election results. And there was a particularly pertinent
Piers: example of this in the 2024 Romanian presidential election where
Piers: the um the first round was nullified.
Piers: Um, in part because of fears of the influence of
Piers: a Russian disinformation campaign. So there's an example of, um,
Piers: false information, disinformation having a very real and tangible effect.
Cassie: Just on, on close elections, I mean, we've just had
Cassie: our Australian election and a lot of the seats were
Cassie: very close, coupled with the ability to specifically target certain
Cassie: electorates with social media messages, it can't be too far
Cassie: off the radar that it's possible to have those, um,
Cassie: impacts in those close seats through targeted messaging from either
Cassie: real or, or fake news outlets or information outlets.
Piers: I would have to agree. So there was a lot
Piers: of um misinformation and disinformation going around. I should say
Piers: from both sides. Um, maybe it roughly balanced out, maybe
Piers: it didn't quite balance out. It would be surprising if
Piers: at least some of those results weren't swung by mis
Piers: and disinformation, especially due to coordinated campaigns, but we can't
Piers: prove that, so we have to, as scientists be a
Piers: little bit cautious about claiming that.
Nick: So it could potentially swing closely contested elections, um, and
Nick: that's why we care about it because it might have
Nick: all sorts of influence for who's in power. But is
Nick: there any evidence it's actually caused other harms outside the
Nick: political system?
Piers: So I would regard mis and disinformation as a "meta risk".
Piers: The principal problem is that it reduces our ability to
Piers: respond to other risks.
Piers: Um, the classic example is our ability or slow response
Piers: to healthcare risks. So for example, in the 1950s, um,
Piers: in the USA but also in the UK there was
Piers: growing evidence linking cigarette smoking to cancer. And in response
Piers: to this, the top six American tobacco companies, um, um,
Piers: came together and they funded the PR firm Hill and
Piers: Norton
Piers: to create a decades-long disinformation campaign, which was perhaps one
Piers: of the most successful um disinformation campaigns in history. Um, historically,
Piers: looking back, it seems to have delayed effective legislation by
Piers: at least 10 years, and the legislation that did come
Piers: in was very much watered down. Um, it really boosted
Piers: their profits and depending on who's modelling you look at,
Piers: this campaign alone, and it wasn't just the
Piers: single event that was um it started off on the
Piers: 4th of January 1954 with this um with this advert,
Piers: a frank statement to cigarette smokers which was actually viewed
Piers: by 43 million Americans. So it, it was a very
Piers: well funded, very big campaign.
Piers: But um it probably cost the lives of somewhere between
Piers: 3 and 7 million Americans just by reducing the legislation
Piers: which would have hampered cigarette sales. So that's one incredible example.
Piers: The reason why I picked on that example is it
Piers: literally became a playbook that other commercial companies used because
Piers: it had the forgive me for saying this, the genius
Piers: insight
Piers: that you don't have to persuade something that someone's not true.
Piers: You just have to cast enough doubt that it is true,
Piers: and then people will delay their actions, especially if they
Piers: don't want to act. So for example, people are smoking,
Piers: they're addicted, they don't want to give up smoking, and
Piers: so you all you have to do is give them
Piers: enough doubt and then they won't give up smoking. Legislators
Piers: won't impose laws because they're getting money from taxes from this.
Piers: So they don't want to do that.
Piers: So this literally created a playbook on how to most
Piers: effectively create doubt and I'm talking about things like, fund
Piers: scientific research that just throws doubt on the issue, um,
Piers: hire fake experts to testify that the evidence isn't yet conclusive.
Piers: Things like that, very effective, and other companies, um, the
Piers: petrochemical industry, for example, various polluting industries, even pharmaceutical industry
Piers: trying to deny that certain medications were addictive, literally
Piers: use the playbook going forward.
Piers: Um, a more modern example would be, um, COVID-19 in
Piers: the US. So between May of 2021 and September 2022,
Piers: over 230,000 Americans died unnecessarily due to COVID. So these
Piers: were people who were offered the vaccine,
Piers: refused the vaccine, went on to die, and this takes
Piers: into account that not all of them would have lived
Piers: had they got the vaccine. Now, misinformation wasn't the only
Piers: reason why they didn't take the vaccine. A lot of
Piers: these people didn't want to take vaccines anyway, but it
Piers: was an enabling factor. It cast enough doubt that it
Piers: helped them decide not to take the vaccine and ultimately die. So,
Piers: we often think of misinformation's primary aim as trying to
Piers: convince something of something false. That's actually not how it's
Piers: generally used. It's generally used to create doubt which either
Piers: delays actions or allows people to act in a way
Piers: that they want to act anyway. That's a second function
Piers: of mis and disinformation. The third one is actually by foreign
Piers: disinformation campaigns, is to purposely designed
Piers: to actually increase social divisions and weaken a country, and again,
Piers: to reduce the ability of that country to take action
Piers: against a foreign threat.
Cassie: Just on your playbook there, you can see that happening
Cassie: in the US at the moment with funding of studies
Cassie: to look at the link between autism and vaccines, and
Cassie: just the fact that they're funding those studies throws doubt
Cassie: on what is pretty much established as no link.
Cassie: And then you see the, the vaping companies doing pretty
Cassie: much the same playbook as the tobacco companies, often the
Cassie: same companies, doing the same thing with vaping that you see. So,
Cassie: you must see a lot of these examples just every
Cassie: day at the moment.
Piers: Well, yes, that's exactly right. And of course, what else
Piers: you're seeing in the US is not only are these
Piers: um
Piers: dubious, not only is this dubious research being funded, but
Piers: the proper research is being defunded and you're getting a
Piers: lot of statements being um made to support um unproven
Piers: scientific techniques and you're getting a lot of true scientific
Piers: information removed from US government websites, again, to create confusion.
Piers: It's primarily about creating confusion.
Nick: Which presumably makes it harder to fight because it's not
Nick: just telling lies, right? It's, uh, increasing doubt and there's
Nick: always some doubt about pretty much any proposition, uh, I guess, uh,
Nick: or removing truth rather than spreading lies. So that presumably
Nick: makes it a lot harder to fight?
Piers: Yes, so that was why it was the genius insight
Piers: of John W. Hill back in the 1950s that it's,
Piers: it's such an easier battle to fight, not to, not to,
Piers: it's impossible to prove that vaccines cause autism because they don't.
Piers: But it's much easier to pour doubt on the fact
Piers: that they've been proved not to cause autism and that's,
Piers: that's what's going on.
Nick: You've mentioned in your work that misinformation can shift societal
Nick: narratives like the illusory truth effect or normalising fringe ideas.
Nick: Can you explain how this works and why it's so dangerous?
Piers: So, the illusionary truth effects is the psychological phenomenon that
Piers: the more you hear something, even if it's not true
Piers: and even if it's not supported by evidence, the more
Piers: likely you are to believe it, or at least to
Piers: begin to believe it's plausible even if you can't believe
Piers: it entirely. So that's coming back to this doubt theme.
Piers: You begin to doubt that it's impossible.
Piers: And the reason why this is an issue is this
Piers: this concept of the Overton window, which is the range
Piers: of um issues that the public think is plausible and
Piers: so are willing to discuss. And using the illusionary truth effects,
Piers: if you
Piers: just keep on repeating extreme views, you can alter that
Piers: Overton window to include um more and more extreme content
Piers: and thus shift the narrative of the discussions and that's
Piers: by shifting the narrative, by shifting what people are willing
Piers: to discuss and entertain, um, you can often shift their
Piers: decisions because one of the heuristics that people use is
Piers: they tend to try and
Piers: stick on the middle decision. So they hear a range
Piers: of ideas and they try and pick the central one
Piers: because as a heuristic, that's generally quite a um a
Piers: good um thing to do.
Piers: So a heuristic is um a mental shortcut.
Piers: It's a way of making an educated guess. In this case,
Piers: an educated guess of whether something is true or not,
Piers: but it is not a reliable method. It's a quick
Piers: and dirty method which usually gives you the right answer,
Piers: but not always.
Piers: People who are pushing disinformation campaigns know that um as
Piers: humans use heuristics and so if they can shift one end,
Piers: they can shift what reasonable people trying to be reasonable
Piers: but being time poor do. And that's one of the
Piers: reasons why um humans fall for disinformation. We're all busy,
Piers: we all have lives.
Piers: We can't actually research every topic we hear about and
Piers: so we need to fall back on heuristics simply to
Piers: get through our lives.
Piers: When I first started in this field, there were media
Piers: literacy studies which were actually trying to teach people how
Piers: to spot false information and they were saying things like,
Piers: you can spot a false advert by looking for misspellings,
Piers: looking for unprofessional formatting. Those are heuristics, and nowadays a
Piers: lot of the false information is very, very professionally done.
Piers: Um, so
Piers: this, humans aren't mean, they aren't out to, um, deceive
Piers: other people, mostly. Some are, but most aren't, but they're
Piers: time poor and forced to use heuristics, which can be exploited.
Cassie: Just on the heuristics thing, and I don't want to
Cassie: get too much into the anti-vax weeds because we'll get
Cassie: hate mail. But, um, when we're talking about how anti-vax
Cassie: campaigners talk about the issues, they will be very direct
Cassie: and assertive about their claims, and they will say, vaccines
Cassie: cause autism.
Cassie: And then you look on the other side, and scientists
Cassie: aren't trained to talk like that. They talk in words like,
Cassie: there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism. So it's a very,
Cassie: from a listener's point of view, one seems very sure
Cassie: and one seems very kind of weak, and you can
Cassie: kind of see how people get led down certain paths
Cassie: from those heuristics just in terms of how people talk
Cassie: about things.
Cassie: Would you suggest that scientists start to talk more certainly
Cassie: about their findings? Or just in terms of the, the
Cassie: damage that it does when we have the other side
Cassie: of a lot of these issues talking very, kind of
Cassie: with a lot of assurance in their claims.
Piers: So what you say is very true. It's been very
Piers: well studied in the literature that just by giving facts
Piers: and figures, even when you can't justify them, makes the
Piers: message sound more plausible.
Piers: But as scientists, we can't do that. We have to
Piers: stick with the truth. We can't become um what would
Piers: amount to being um partisan, wouldn't it? Because then we'd
Piers: be trying to push a political message because once we
Piers: go beyond what the science is, then we're getting political.
Piers: And that's probably going to backfire. So no, I wouldn't
Piers: recommend scientists do that.
Piers: But what I would recommend science, and this is actually
Piers: one of the things I'm, we're doing in our lab,
Piers: is explaining what the truth looks like and trying to
Piers: get people not to use heuristics and not to assume
Piers: that every time they see a number. On my way
Piers: back when on my commute home, I pass I I
Piers: go past the barbershop which um says that um,
Piers: That character is, um, 84 84% innate and 16, 16%
Piers: the haircut, and they fix the 16%. Now that's a
Piers: joke and we can all see it's a joke, but, um,
Piers: we need to train people, and this is one of
Piers: the things my lab is trying
Piers: to do. So they don't fall for these simple tricks
Piers: that a number means you're credible.
Cassie: What are some other things for our listeners who want
Cassie: to avoid being pulled by disinformation campaigns? What practical steps
Cassie: can they take or what things can they do to
Cassie: avoid falling down these rabbit holes?
Piers: So, the best advice is perhaps the most boring, which
Piers: is watch what information sources you use. So the majority
Piers: of Australians now um get the majority of the um
Piers: news from social media. It's just popping up in their feed.
Piers: Social media is a very unreliable source, consciously deciding not
Piers: to get your information from an unreliable source because we
Piers: all suffer from the illusionary truth effects.
Piers: And another thing we all suffer from is believing we
Piers: don't suffer from the illusionary truth effects. If you just
Piers: see it more and more often, you will shift what
Piers: you believe is plausible. That's just how humans are. So
Piers: use reliable news sources, go out of your way to
Piers: subscribe to these reliable mainstream news sources, ABC, BBC, New
Piers: York Times, The Age, The Australian. Distinguish between when these
Piers: reliable sources are reporting factually and when you have opinions.
Piers: Um, a lot of people don't make that distinction. In fact,
Piers: a surprisingly large amount of people cannot distinguish between a fact,
Piers: a newspaper report and an advert put in this in
Piers: this news newspaper with the word advert at the top,
Piers: but put in the format of a newspaper article. So
Piers: be clear which bit of the source you're reading and
Piers: that bit is actually reliable.
Piers: But also, even the reliable news sources are now beginning
Piers: to use clickbaity headlines. What pops up on social media
Piers: is typically just the headline. Most people share that without
Piers: even clicking on the link.
Piers: Um, so they don't even know what they're sharing because
Piers: the actual article, sometimes these, these um links go to
Piers: reputable articles, but the actual article, even it's reputable, might
Piers: not quite encapsulate that headline. That headline is short. Um,
Piers: and in some cases, some social media companies actually changed
Piers: the headline as well, which is, uh, which, which can
Piers: be a problem. Um.
Piers: Don't just put things into search engines because the AI
Piers: will spit out an amalgamated result which may not correspond
Piers: to reality in any way.
Piers: Um, reliable sources also include things like government websites, but also, um, Wikipedia.
Piers: There's a bit of a backlash at the moment in
Piers: our schools against Wikipedia. Wikipedia can be a very, very
Piers: valuable source, but it sometimes misses the mark. And at
Piers: the top of the Wikipedia page, there's a talk tab
Piers: and if you go there, you can get a rating
Piers: of how reliable that particular Wikipedia page is.
Piers: And although the article itself may be unreliable, that rating
Piers: is usually very good indeed. And I would argue because
Piers: of the illusionary truth effect, if that rating is low, don't,
Piers: don't read, don't think, oh, OK, this, this isn't reliable,
Piers: but I'm gonna read it anyway and I'll just, you know,
Piers: be sceptic because you will end up fooling yourself.
Cassie: A lot of those tactics of critical thinking are tactics
Cassie: that the misinformation side will often say that they're doing, right?
Cassie: They'll say, don't fall for
Cassie: the, you know, don't be a sheep, don't follow this,
Cassie: this is the real truth. And they kind of believe
Cassie: that they're critical thinkers and doing all those things. They're
Cassie: just going to the real source rather than the fake news. So,
Cassie: how do you get around people thinking that they are
Cassie: doing all those things? It's just that they're being led
Cassie: to the wrong sources.
Piers: So that's the million dollar question.
Piers: And I'll just be straight, I don't have a good answer,
Piers: and the field doesn't have a good answer. Our answer
Piers: used to be go to third party fact checkers. Now
Piers: we have Breitbart doing fact checking and those fact checks
Piers: bear no resemblance at all to any of the other
Piers: fact checkers.
Piers: Um, but people are quoting these Breitbart fact checks. They're quoting, um, um,
Piers: Fox News. So you have an alternative information ecosystem and
Piers: we're not really sure how to deal with it. We
Piers: thought that you could go to the ultimate source of truth,
Piers: which would be science. Well, hasn't that been proved wrong?
Piers: I remember a junior member of faculty coming up to
Piers: me being terribly, terribly excited.
Piers: Because he knew I I studied misinformation and he had
Piers: the solution. The solution was very simple for him. Australia
Piers: needed an independent scientific body which would research um topics
Piers: which were important to elections and give the facts to
Piers: the Australian people. So of course I mentioned CSIRO, I
Piers: mentioned the nuclear report, and I mentioned that it was
Piers: pretty much ignored by a certain party.
Piers: We don't have a good answer. So my lab is
Piers: trying other ways. That, that's what you, what you're talking
Piers: about is too hard for us to tackle. But there's
Piers: other ways you can do. There's the foot in the
Piers: door technique. You can talk about other values and you
Piers: can build up getting people more and more reasonable, and
Piers: then eventually they can perhaps realise that perhaps Fox News
Piers: isn't always so factually accurate.
Nick: So looking ahead, do you think the fight against misinformation,
Nick: disinformation will be getting easier or harder with AI and
Nick: other technological advances?
Piers: It's gonna change, but I don't think it's gonna get
Piers: either easier or harder. So AI is having a huge,
Piers: huge impact. So we're now getting far more sophisticated botnets,
Piers: which are coordinating in far more human-like manners, um, and, um,
Piers: and also even in some cases acting as sleepers.
Piers: So in the past, you would be befriended by what
Piers: who you thought was a human but was actually a
Piers: bot and would immediately try to persuade you to do something,
Piers: vote for this person or don't vote for that person.
Piers: Now they can act like your friends for maybe 6
Piers: months and then try and persuade you to do something.
Piers: So it's getting pretty sophisticated.
Piers: Um, sending out personalised messages is getting increasingly easy with
Piers: these large language models. The game is changing very much,
Piers: but also we're developing techniques using AI to spot these botnets,
Piers: to spot this inauthentic activity, and also to, um, there's
Piers: quite a lot of work done by, um, um, Costello
Piers: and um David Rand, um, and Gordon Pennycook, who um,
Piers: Thomas Costello, um, who are using, um, large language models
Piers: to try and talk people out of conspiracies. It's again though,
Piers: when someone really goes down the rabbit hole, it can
Piers: be quite hard, but they're,
Piers: um, these large language models are more effective than a
Piers: human in many cases because they can engage at the
Piers: level of detail of a conspiracy theorist. So people, um,
Piers: gone down the rabbit hole, they often know a lot
Piers: of detail about the conspiracy theories, and when they, forgive me,
Piers: when a normal human starts talking to them, we
Piers: haven't spent 3 years studying this particular conspiracy theory, so
Piers: we don't know this level of detail, but a large
Piers: language model can work at that level of detail and
Piers: give um some information which can be accepted. I have
Piers: to say the effect size so far aren't that large,
Piers: but at least they're sustainable.
Piers: Um, so we shall see.
Cassie: I guess the other thing with these conspiracy theory groups is,
Cassie: you know, we've talked about how to talk them out
Cassie: of it, but sometimes it's not about the facts, it's
Cassie: they've found their group, they've found a sense of belonging,
Cassie: that identity. Whenever those beliefs become part of that person's identity,
Cassie: then it becomes less about the facts of the conspiracy
Cassie: and more that they're getting all of these social needs
Cassie: from
Cassie: that group, and it's very hard to just convince them
Cassie: out of that with facts, right? It becomes a harder
Cassie: sell to pull them away from what might be their
Cassie: only social connection, which I think is another challenge with
Cassie: a lot of these conspiracy groups.
Piers: Oh, very much so. So,
Piers: some of the standard advice for how to deal with
Piers: people with conspiracies is well, firstly, don't try and refute
Piers: what they're saying because that's what they're doing. And if,
Piers: and if, if that would have worked, they would no
Piers: longer be into conspiracies. So you know that's a dead end.
Piers: But try um and find out why they believe in
Piers: it and also try and find out what need it's
Piers: satisfying in their life. So what caused them to go
Piers: down
Piers: Um, that rabbit hole. So my mother-in-law, um, became a
Piers: conspiracy theorist. Um, she very much went down several rabbit
Piers: holes and conspiracy theorists typically don't believe in just one
Piers: conspiracy theory. There's often, um, a series of related conspiracy theories.
Piers: And in her case, um, she was feeling quite lonely,
Piers: quite isolated, and as you said, it provided a support network. Um,
Piers: I work with people, um,
Piers: in Melbourne Connect who actually study um um conspiracy beliefs.
Piers: And one of the things that shocked me was them
Piers: reporting how supportive um the support networks are. Um, and
Piers: this was someone um studying the manosphere and these, these, um,
Piers: these men, these um incels, involuntary and celibates, um, would
Piers: go on the spaces and tell everyone their um problems
Piers: and they would actually receive support and it was
Piers: in some sense, a positive experience had not the group
Piers: actually been focused on being misogynistic. Um, so it's gonna
Piers: be very hard to talk someone out of that because
Piers: these people clearly didn't have a social life outside this
Piers: and were unable to create normal connections with human beings.
Piers: So it can be hard.
Nick: OK, Piers, so what's one final takeaway or piece of
Nick: advice you'd like to leave our listeners with as they
Nick: navigate today's very, very challenging information landscape.
Piers: So, we were discussing this a little bit earlier, Nick,
Piers: and um I think you would agree with me when,
Piers: when I say there's a bit of a feeling of despondency.
Piers: A lot of us are feeling a bit of dragged
Piers: down about international events, about perhaps domestic events, feeling all
Piers: a bit overwhelmed. So I'd actually like to end on
Piers: a somewhat hopeful note.
Piers: That you're actually more powerful than you realise. You can
Piers: actually access reliable information easier than perhaps you realise, and
Piers: you can actually fend off these mis and disinformation campaigns
Piers: easier than you might think.
Piers: And so it would just be to encourage people to
Piers: actually take the time and think, is this really true?
Piers: Is this not? Lateral reading, just, you've received some information
Piers: before you read it all, start checking, do other reliable
Piers: sources say this sort of thing? Um.
Piers: It's actually quite easy to spot a lot of misinformation
Piers: if you just take a few seconds to do so.
Piers: So I would end on a positive note, don't get despondent.
Piers: This too shall pass and um lots of us are
Piers: working on solutions to it.
Cassie: Fascinating. Thank you for joining us today, Piers, and I
Cassie: think you've given our listeners and us a lot to
Cassie: think about and take away.
Nick: Thank you very much.
Cassie: And that brings us to the end of today's conversation.
Cassie: A huge thank you to Associate Professor Piers Howe for
Cassie: helping us understand how misinformation works and what we can
Cassie: do about it.
Nick: This episode of PsychTalks was produced by Carly Godden with
Nick: production support from Mairead Murray and Gemma Papprill. Sound engineering
Nick: by Jack Palmer. Thanks so much for joining us, and
Nick: if you don't already, please subscribe so you can catch
Nick: every episode in the series. We'll see you next time.