Social manipulation in the gaming era

This post is written by Tarick Gracida, communications coordinator of the Democratic Innovation Programme at Fundación Avina.

• The problem: Some governments and many civil society organisations try to confront alluring misinformation and fake news, seeking to raise awareness among the population using technical (and oftentimes boring) information.

• Why it matters: Fake news and misinformation are creating radical movements that are impacting the lives of millions of citizens.

• The solution: Developing communication strategies that connect with people to achieve behavioural changes in society.

Whether it’s the use of words like toxic, smurf, cheesing, gamer, AFK, or OP, online video games are being used as a new channel of communication to influence future generations, either for or against matters such as politics, gender inequality and migratory inclusion, for example. These channels are an unexplored terrain, at least by many civil society organisations that defend human rights, open governance and democracies.

Within video game platforms, due to the very nature of those platforms, the vast majority of users connect with invented profiles from all over the world. A gaming console or computer is no longer required to play online; in 2021, cell phones were the most used device worldwide. Children and young people from different social classes spend time together en masse in a space where anonymity and freedom coexist.

"In some video games, there are movements both for and against human rights."

Some governments and many civil society organisations try to confront alluring misinformation and fake news, seeking to raise awareness among the population using technical (and oftentimes ”boring”) information through Twitter and Facebook or even TikTok (the more “daring” ones), but on the other side, anti-democracy movements, racists, anti-vaxxers and even drug cartels reach broader audiences to recruit young people through online games.

A digital battleground

In some video games, there are movements both for and against human rights. Just connect to platforms like Roblox to find everything from feminist marches to fascist and anti-democratic messages. It is unclear which side of the scale is gaining more weight. But what is very clear, with more than three billion gamers worldwide, is that video games are a powerful new channel of communication, and one with very little oversight, not on the games’ content per ser but on the people using it as a manipulation channel.

Feminist march in Roblox

Today, it is possible for anti-vaxxers, anti-democracy, racists, etc., to influence thousands of gamers by using fictitious characters with narratives that generate empathy, which triggers many questions about the great challenges faced. In Latin America, most gamers fall into an age range of 20 to 39 years (49.7% are women), which is an economically active population group that votes on electoral matters. If that group is being manipulated by people that reach them using games as a channel, we can imagine the major risks this entails for minors, who spend an average of more than three hours a day together in online games.

Channels of communication have evolved massively and invasively and have adapted (and will continue to adapt) to new realities, but propaganda is not something new. An example of this is The Propaganda Game, a board game which asked people to identify and analyse messages as well as 55 manipulation techniques so they could confront misinformation and propaganda beyond the channel of communication. This game was not online. It was created in 1970—that’s right, 1970.

The propaganda game

The challenge ahead

In recent years, the communication capacities of governments and civil society organisations have been surpassed in dealing with misinformation and propaganda. A large part of the population prefers to believe in narratives that generate empathy, rather than in real and verified data. Few capabilities exist for monitoring people using as a new channel the video game industry—which took in $173 billion in 2020 alone. There is no information about how advanced the manipulation is within the new channel of communication represented by video games, but but we can see the aftermath.

At the end of 2021 and as part of the team of Pulsante—a partnership between the organisations Luminate, Open Society Foundations and Fundación Avina—we started a pilot programme with ten civil society organisations from seven countries to create a space for strengthening their capabilities, not only in relation to traditional communication strategies, but also communication and narratives that achieve social impact. Before the pilot, 88% of the organisations stated that their audiences were well defined; after the pilot sessions, the number decreased to 45%. 90% of the organisations confirmed that after the 2021 space they changed their vision on narratives. During 2022, from Pulsante we will jump from a pilot to a full space/programme and network for the organizations to co-create a path on how to implement comprehensive communication strategies, and narratives that achieve behavioural changes in society.

It is urgent that civil society organisations adapt and improve their communication skills. It is not just about posting for the sake of posting on social networks or communicating through video games. It is about developing comprehensive communication strategies—online and offline, in the short, medium and long term—based on people, that is, strategies that connect with people and achieve social improvements and behavioural changes. That is the new barrier to tear down.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)