Google to introduce behavioral "interventions"

Source: (https://bit.ly/3FpFEv4)
Google has presented its project dubbed "Info Interventions" based
on what it says is a behavioral science that, if these
"interventions" are used as directed, could "teach" users to the
degree they will become resilient to online harms.
Another promise is that by "pre-bunking misinformation" users can
be "immunized."
How is this supposed to work? Google has put up a site that states
the goal is to provide accuracy prompts that would refocus users
attention toward whatever Google decides qualifies as accurate
information.
And to reach it, the "hypothesis" currently seems to be that
"reminding individuals to think about accuracy when they might
be about to engage with false information can boost users
pre-existing accuracy goals."
This method of effectively training users to behave in a desired way
is unsurprisingly attempting to draw from behavioral science research
and Google says it has been validated by digital experiments.
This "gift to the world" comes thanks to Google's unit called Jigsaw,
set up to "explore threats to open societies, and build technology
that inspires scalable solutions."
A Medium post by Jigsaw posted back in March 2021 declares that
research suggests there could be a powerful way to reduce
"misinformation" simply by reminding internet users to think about
accuracy - in other words, goading them until they move to where you
want them to go.
There's even an attempt to guilt-trip users into thinking they are
helping spread "misinformation by being prone to distractions" -
whereas having accuracy as defined by Google on your mind might
reduce that.
Currently, Google explains on its "Interventions" page, if a user
scrolls through a feed they may encounter "potential misinformation."
That would then activate "an accuracy prompt" that would partially
cover the information already labeled as misinformation.
The prompt contains a short explanation as to why a user is seeing it,
but in general, a user's attention is now supposed to shift from the
content they wanted to see, to the prompt, which means they will be
directed to consider "accuracy" instead.
They will also be subjected to something called information literacy
tips. Primed like this, the user's attention is now all on the
"reminder" with the content left far behind - and more importantly,
as far as Google is concerned, the next time they encounter similar
content, the hope is they will "think twice" (presumably, about
engaging with it.)
Now about the results of those experiments Google (Jigsaw) says have
been carried out together with MIT and the University of Regina:
See the full details here (https://bit.ly/3VOc5IY).