With Putin’s Russia on its doorstep, Finland began arming its people against misinformation. It worked
Late last year, a report was published that ranked countries according to their resilience to misinformation. At first, when I searched for the United Kingdom, I couldn’t find it – because I was looking at the top end of the list. In fact, the UK didn’t make the top 10 – it was in the second tier, coming in at number 13, well below many western European countries.
Where are we going wrong? The report relied on several well-known indices to determine a country’s level of resilience to fake news, including freedom of the press, societal trust and national education levels. Finland topped the table, and has received international praise for its outstanding approach to fighting fake news. A thriving democracy – like Finland’s – is characterised by high levels of trust, an educated citizenry, as well as freedom of the press. Unfortunately, according to the report, the UK got downgraded on all of these indicators, thanks to declining levels of trust and increasing concerns about threats to journalism and media freedom. Yet, the biggest differentiator in the ranking has to do with media literacy and education.
Sander van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in Society at the University of Cambridge and Author of Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity
