Nudging Users Vulnerable to Poor Information Use

The next speaker in this ICA 2018 session is Laleah Fernandez, who begins by highlighting the moral panics around echo chambers, filter bubbles, and ‘fake news’. There is limited evidence that these issues are major concerns, but to the extent that these are genuine problems, key users might be useful in addressing these problems, by nudging vulnerable users towards more sensible behaviours.

Who are the vulnerable, however? They include those who are interested in politics but not skilled in search, and this population could be identified from their responses to the Quello Search Project. (The most vulnerable group ranged from about 1% in the U.S. to about 4% in Italy; they are scattered across demographic categories.) Positive behaviours would include a more diverse choice or media diet, and more verification of received information through subsequent searching.

Nudging such users towards better information behaviours may be difficult in a specifically targetted way, but they may also benefit from nudging interventions that are directed at all Internet users. Inappropriate Internet regulation should be avoided here; this is not simply a technological problem, as users themselves are their own key algorithm.