Half #Truths
What is the game Half #Truths?
In the Half #Truths game you will help the Mad Crow manipulate hundreds of people on social media. To achieve this goal, you need to set aside ethics and choose posts with the potential to engage followers, earn likes, and assist our villain in building his empire of lies!
My kingdom for a bunch of likes!
To gain credibility on social media, Mad Crow is capable of anything: create conspiracy theories, use fake accounts, post false content, and defame anyone who tries to expose him!
Goal of the game
The goal of the game is to expose persuasion tactics mainly used by radical groups to manipulate and attract followers on social media. Half #Truths was created to train users against misinformation and build cognitive resistance against misinformative practices found online.
Who can play Half #Truths?
The game was developed for young adults. It contains sensitive themes and aims to stimulate political tolerance by discussing the harmful consequences of spreading radical ideologies circulating on social media. Although it is a fictional narrative, Half #Truths draws on references from real situations in different social and political contexts that can cause (often irreversible) harm to society and democracy.
Concept
Half #Truths is an academic project, developed by the PhD candidate in Information Science at Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE – Brazil), Karoline Maria Fernandes da Costa e Silva, under supervision of Dra. Nadi Helena Presser (UFPE), and co-supervision of Dra. Luciana Monteiro-Krebs, from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). The Gaming team is composed of Cecilia Ceci (game illustrator), Gabriel Candido (game developer) and Thamyres Oliveira (game producer).
Half #Truths was also developed in partnership with the Meaningful Interactions Lab at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven – Belgium), under the guidance of Dr. David Geerts (Ku Leuven).
The methodology that supports its content is based on the Psychological Inoculation Theory, whose postulate states that it is possible to provide cognitive resistance by presenting persuasive arguments capable of refuting certain dishonest discourses before such content solidifies in people's minds.
This version is a prototype and aims to test the effectiveness of the method used in the game to build psychological "immunization" against misinformation. You can find more information about this scientific research at this email: karoline.fernandes@ufpe.br or karoline.fernandes@gmail.com.
