Preventive Cognitive Contagion As A Strategy For Mitigating Electoral Misinformation

The difficulty in correcting misinformation, a post-truth, is tremendous. Its effects are highly enduring, even after retractions, as the effectiveness of the correction depends on factors involving warnings during exposure to misinformation, repetition of retractions, and correction through a coherent alternative narrative (Lewandowsky et. al. 2012). Considering the vast amount of data posted and the dynamism of information transmitted via digital channels, legal measures available in Brazil have not been successful in protecting the truthfulness of news disseminated on the internet. There is a need for an enforcement of the establishment of rules that address the core issues. The effects of misinformation persist in people’s reasoning, bringing about a phenomenon known as “continued influence” (Ecker, Lewandowsky, Cook,. et al. 2022). One key to overcoming misinformation would be healthy skepticism or induced distrust regarding people’s attitudes towards questioning the origins of misinformation, making the revelation of falsehood more readily accepted (Lewandowsky 2012). One possible strategy would be to promote defensive cognitive contagion (Cowen et. al. 2022), adopting the effects of dissonance and exposure with the cognitive cascade model, which captures the spread of identity-related beliefs through the sharing of messages by so-called “super-spreaders,” individuals with significant media exposure. This strategy would focus on correcting misinformation and conspiracy theories that permeate the population, rather than just the network in which they are embedded. It would be a kind of counter-propaganda to “inoculate” network users, preparing them to encounter misinformation and yet not rely on it. It is understood that platforms have a duty of diligence to facilitate such preventive strategies, which can be adopted as one ofthe forms ofmitigation in the realm of electoral misinformation.