False Webs at the Fringe
Ted, the network assistant, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas. This series of shows is designed as a space for academics to present their field in an “edutainment” talk in front of a crowd, followed up with a Q&A session. Ted’s show was part of this year’s series of science communication performances, and he explained several different research perspectives on fact checking and preventative measures that are currently focused on in research.
The main event of the show included explaining some of the current ideas around “prebunking” people by teaching them how to make fake news. He then became “Evil Ted” by wearing a set of glasses with angry eyebrows and walked the audience through multiple reasons and strategies for writing fake news articles, helping them to write some sordid stories about the comedian MC, Susan Morrison. This comedic stage adaptation of the “Bad News Game” was followed up by some critical comparisons with other contradictory or opposing research, which indicate that training reasoning in education settings may also be a more viable approach in the long run.
As the act closed, hands shot up and a 30-minute Q&A session followed. Audience members asked all sorts of questions about the future of fake news detection, from censorship to AI-fact checking.
