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Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity
Winner of the 2024 APA William James Book Award • Winner of the 2024 Harvard Goldsmith Book Prize • Winner of the 2024 Nautilus Book Award (Silver) • A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read • A Financial Times Best Book of the Year 2023 • One of Nature’s best science picks
Informed by decades of research and on-the-ground experience advising governments and tech companies, Foolproof is the definitive guide to navigating the misinformation age. From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being―yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. In Foolproof , one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it’s very hard to cure. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold. But we aren’t helpless. As van der Linden shows based on award-winning original research, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of “prebunking”: inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, van der Linden gives readers practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion―whether at scale or around their own dinner table. 35 illustrations
Informed by decades of research and on-the-ground experience advising governments and tech companies, Foolproof is the definitive guide to navigating the misinformation age. From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being―yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. In Foolproof , one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it’s very hard to cure. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold. But we aren’t helpless. As van der Linden shows based on award-winning original research, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of “prebunking”: inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, van der Linden gives readers practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion―whether at scale or around their own dinner table. 35 illustrations
368 pages, ebook
First published February 16, 2023
289 people are currently reading
6230 people want to read
About the author
Sander van der Linden
8 books44 followersSander van der Linden, Ph.D., is Professor of Social Psychology in Society and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He is ranked among the top 1% of highly cited social scientists worldwide and has published over 150 research papers. He frequently appears on international TV and radio and his work is regularly featured in outlets such as the New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, and the BBC. He has been described by WIRED magazine as one of “15 top thinkers” and by Fast Company Design as one “four heroes who are defending digital democracy online”. Before joining Cambridge, he held academic positions at Princeton, Yale, and the LSE.
His most recent book is FOOLPROOF: Why Misinformation Infects our Minds and How to Build Immunity, which was listed as one of the most anticipated non-fiction books of 2023 by BBC, Cosmopolitan, Apple Books, and a Nex Big Idea Club Must Read.
Reviews and feedback on Goodreads and Amazon welcome!
His most recent book is FOOLPROOF: Why Misinformation Infects our Minds and How to Build Immunity, which was listed as one of the most anticipated non-fiction books of 2023 by BBC, Cosmopolitan, Apple Books, and a Nex Big Idea Club Must Read.
Reviews and feedback on Goodreads and Amazon welcome!
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August 24, 2025
The always inspiring Mahatma Gandhi once said ‘live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever,’ a great reminder to always keep your mind active and learning. Especially in our ever changing world full of misinformation it is increasingly important to learn how to sort fact from fiction and identity when you are being manipulated. Like right now, because that quote from Gandhi—while often repeated and cited—is not actually something he said. Sorry for the confusion (I just wrote a blog on misinformation and fake quote for the library this month), but this is why Sander van der Linden’s book Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity is such an important book to learn from as he dissects the issues of misinformation (and disinformation) in our world, why it is so infectious to the public, and ideas on how we can prevent and push back against it. Especially in our modern age of social media which is where your grandfather’s conspiracy theory memes go to multiple like rabbits, having at least a basic education in information literacy (and, more specifically, media literacy) can be so important. Sander van der Linden covers topics such as “prebunking” strategies, the common types of manipulation employed to spread misinformation and more. It makes for a fascinating and rather accessible read. Combatting misinformation is important to protect truth and to ensure health, safety and freedoms are protected for society, all the more important when the industry plant talking head of the US just spewed out a relatively unenforceable executive order bypassing democratic checks and balances which innacurately and unrealistically states that instances of ‘combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States’ in an effort to curb online fact checking, these are skills we should all be thinking about while online.
As a Professor of Social Psychology in Society at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, Sander van der Linden has made understanding and educating about misinformation and the psychology of manipulation his livelihood. His more recent book, The Psychology of Misinformation, really gets into a more academic look at the psychology behind it but here he has offered a rather accessible overview on why it sticks and what we can do about it. With misinformation becoming a rather important topic during the pandemic in 2020, van der Linden couches the language here into looking at misinformation as a sort of ‘virus’ that infects the brain to manipulate ‘basic cognitive machinery.’ The good news, he writes, is that it can be countered with a ‘psychological vaccine” that ‘does not require any needles, just an open mind,’ and a toolkit of misinformation countering tactics.
The book begins with some rather fascinating looks at how misinformation catches on and spreads. A major issue, he points out, is that ‘where factual scientific information is full of caveats, misinformation and conspiracy theories operate in certainties.’ Basically, misinformation is certain and simple whereas the truth requires a little bit of brainpower. Thats why memes are so effective–they are easy to understand, easy to share, and tend to employ manipulative tactics that make them catch on such as humor or emotional resonance whereas science tends to be…fairly low energy on the excitement scale. Misinformation catches on due to issues of filter bubbles, preconceived biases, cherry picking for points that agree with you, distrust of authority or opposing arguments, and many other cognitive issues and most disinformation employs some of these common manipulation tricks: emotional language, false dichotomy, cherry picking info, fake experts, red herrings, scapegoating, ad hominem attacks, polarization, impersonation, slippery slope fallacies, and basically any other rhetorical fallacies.
As someone that likes to make learning fun, here is a QUIZ to see if you can spot the correct manipulation technique. Sander van der Linden and his team also developed an online game called Bad News where you practice writing misinformation social media posts to see what makes you gain the most traction. The game was used for research and found the game helped people recognize common disinformation tactics and were more readily able to identify it when they come across it in real life. You can play it HERE.
This book is also full of a lot of interesting studies, such as a lot of looks at a 2021 Yougov survey with topics like percentage of people who think a secret group is running the world or how 75% of Trump voters ‘continue to believe that the 2020 elected was rigged’ even after their arguments for it were disproved. But why do people continue to believe things despite a lack of evidence, van der Linden asks us, and many conspiracy theories require an almost impossible level of complicity in people with no reason to stay silent (an example used is that 400,000 NASA employees would have had to be ‘complicit in the conspiracy’ if the moon landing was fake). We have aspects of confirmation bias discussed but also some wild studies on how false memories can be instilled, such as my personal favorite, The Bugs Bunny study:
From aspects like this, van der Linden gets into his Six Degrees of Manipulation and educates on how to spot misinformation as well as what to do about it. A big key is information literacy. The American Library Association defines information literacy as a set of abilities that require a person to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.’ This goes hand in hand with media literacy, or the ability to critically analyze stories presented in the mass media and to determine their accuracy or credibility. You can read more in depth on how to identify misinformation HERE, but the basics of vetting information are:
1. Identify Who Provided The Information
2. Acknowledge Any Potential Bias
3. Check the Purpose of the Information
4. Verify Citations and References
“Prebunking” becomes a major topic at the end, which is essentially learning to stop misinformation instead of trying to disprove it. The issues in 2020 showed that effective disinformation communities are participatory and networked, while quality information distribution mechanisms tend to be less “sticky” and often dismissed as elitist or a “I’m not going to read all that” type of information. But identifying misinformation and NOT sharing it is a good way to combat it, especially when research shows that trying to debunk information reaches less people and is less convincing than stopping it in the first place.
Image source: World Health Organization
Prebunking also requires centering the truth. Often the news will say “so and so said: [insert bonkers statement]” and then go about picking it apart in a way that regrettably seems like validating anyone who might agree with it by not just dismissing it outright. Prebunking would have you lead with the truth and then point out how a statement that disagrees with it is wrong and framing it as such instead of giving any opportunity for it to be taken seriously. There are three main types of prebunks:
1. fact-based: correcting a specific false claim or narrative
2. logic-based: explaining tactics used to manipulate
3. source-based: pointing out bad sources of information
With prebunking, research has certainly shown that giving people the tools to identify misinformation is the most successful way at preventing it and, in the rather medical terminology used in this book, prevention is a more effective way to combat misinformation than any sort of "cure" for it.
While Foolproof can feel academic at times, it is actually rather accessible and fun to read. It makes for an excellent look at misinformation and strategies to combat it and does so in a very engaging and productive manner. For those who tend to want to avoid politics, this book remains relatively to the subject of misinformation and doesn’t get very much into divisions by political parties in a way that would make it easy to recommend to virtually anyone (there are some political aspects, but it is far more subdued than most books on the subject). I really enjoyed this and for all the books on misinformation I’ve been reading for my committee assignment at the library, this has so far been my favorite and the one I would find most useful to the general public.
4.5/5
As a Professor of Social Psychology in Society at the University of Cambridge and the Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, Sander van der Linden has made understanding and educating about misinformation and the psychology of manipulation his livelihood. His more recent book, The Psychology of Misinformation, really gets into a more academic look at the psychology behind it but here he has offered a rather accessible overview on why it sticks and what we can do about it. With misinformation becoming a rather important topic during the pandemic in 2020, van der Linden couches the language here into looking at misinformation as a sort of ‘virus’ that infects the brain to manipulate ‘basic cognitive machinery.’ The good news, he writes, is that it can be countered with a ‘psychological vaccine” that ‘does not require any needles, just an open mind,’ and a toolkit of misinformation countering tactics.
The book begins with some rather fascinating looks at how misinformation catches on and spreads. A major issue, he points out, is that ‘where factual scientific information is full of caveats, misinformation and conspiracy theories operate in certainties.’ Basically, misinformation is certain and simple whereas the truth requires a little bit of brainpower. Thats why memes are so effective–they are easy to understand, easy to share, and tend to employ manipulative tactics that make them catch on such as humor or emotional resonance whereas science tends to be…fairly low energy on the excitement scale. Misinformation catches on due to issues of filter bubbles, preconceived biases, cherry picking for points that agree with you, distrust of authority or opposing arguments, and many other cognitive issues and most disinformation employs some of these common manipulation tricks: emotional language, false dichotomy, cherry picking info, fake experts, red herrings, scapegoating, ad hominem attacks, polarization, impersonation, slippery slope fallacies, and basically any other rhetorical fallacies.
As someone that likes to make learning fun, here is a QUIZ to see if you can spot the correct manipulation technique. Sander van der Linden and his team also developed an online game called Bad News where you practice writing misinformation social media posts to see what makes you gain the most traction. The game was used for research and found the game helped people recognize common disinformation tactics and were more readily able to identify it when they come across it in real life. You can play it HERE.
This book is also full of a lot of interesting studies, such as a lot of looks at a 2021 Yougov survey with topics like percentage of people who think a secret group is running the world or how 75% of Trump voters ‘continue to believe that the 2020 elected was rigged’ even after their arguments for it were disproved. But why do people continue to believe things despite a lack of evidence, van der Linden asks us, and many conspiracy theories require an almost impossible level of complicity in people with no reason to stay silent (an example used is that 400,000 NASA employees would have had to be ‘complicit in the conspiracy’ if the moon landing was fake). We have aspects of confirmation bias discussed but also some wild studies on how false memories can be instilled, such as my personal favorite, The Bugs Bunny study:
‘[Researchers] exposed people to a fake Disneyland pamphlet entitled, 'It's time to remember the magic? The point was to activate childhood memories of a visit to Disney-land. However, there was something odd about the pamphlet: it featured a message from Bugs Bunny - a Warner Brothers cartoon character that couldn't possibly have been present at Disneyland. After exposure to the ad, about 25 to 35 percent of participants claimed to have met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland. People offered up specific details too; about 60 per cent of those who claimed to have met Bugs remembered they hugged him, and one individual even recalled Bugs holding a carrot.’
From aspects like this, van der Linden gets into his Six Degrees of Manipulation and educates on how to spot misinformation as well as what to do about it. A big key is information literacy. The American Library Association defines information literacy as a set of abilities that require a person to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.’ This goes hand in hand with media literacy, or the ability to critically analyze stories presented in the mass media and to determine their accuracy or credibility. You can read more in depth on how to identify misinformation HERE, but the basics of vetting information are:
1. Identify Who Provided The Information
2. Acknowledge Any Potential Bias
3. Check the Purpose of the Information
4. Verify Citations and References
“Prebunking” becomes a major topic at the end, which is essentially learning to stop misinformation instead of trying to disprove it. The issues in 2020 showed that effective disinformation communities are participatory and networked, while quality information distribution mechanisms tend to be less “sticky” and often dismissed as elitist or a “I’m not going to read all that” type of information. But identifying misinformation and NOT sharing it is a good way to combat it, especially when research shows that trying to debunk information reaches less people and is less convincing than stopping it in the first place.
Image source: World Health Organization
Prebunking also requires centering the truth. Often the news will say “so and so said: [insert bonkers statement]” and then go about picking it apart in a way that regrettably seems like validating anyone who might agree with it by not just dismissing it outright. Prebunking would have you lead with the truth and then point out how a statement that disagrees with it is wrong and framing it as such instead of giving any opportunity for it to be taken seriously. There are three main types of prebunks:
1. fact-based: correcting a specific false claim or narrative
2. logic-based: explaining tactics used to manipulate
3. source-based: pointing out bad sources of information
With prebunking, research has certainly shown that giving people the tools to identify misinformation is the most successful way at preventing it and, in the rather medical terminology used in this book, prevention is a more effective way to combat misinformation than any sort of "cure" for it.
While Foolproof can feel academic at times, it is actually rather accessible and fun to read. It makes for an excellent look at misinformation and strategies to combat it and does so in a very engaging and productive manner. For those who tend to want to avoid politics, this book remains relatively to the subject of misinformation and doesn’t get very much into divisions by political parties in a way that would make it easy to recommend to virtually anyone (there are some political aspects, but it is far more subdued than most books on the subject). I really enjoyed this and for all the books on misinformation I’ve been reading for my committee assignment at the library, this has so far been my favorite and the one I would find most useful to the general public.
4.5/5
March 21, 2023
What sets "Foolproof" apart from other pop science books is that the author, Sander van der Linden, is a world expert in his field -- one of the best scientists out there studying misinformation. So, you can tell, reading the book, that Sander really knows his stuff, and gives great commentary and detail about the best studies out there on this topics.
To give you a quick preview of the content: he talks about classic studies on why we believe misinformation (we're more likely to believe things that are repeated!), talks about how conspiracy theories fulfill psychological motivations and share many features in common, describes the psychology of motivated reasoning (we believe what we want to believe!), talks about the social media "post-truth" era, talks about how fake news often spreads faster than the truth, discusses the psychology of persuasion (and whether Cambridge Analytica and political ads really influenced us), talks about echo chambers and how polarizing content is likely to go "viral" online, and finally talks about how to solve misinformation through "pre-bunking" -- going into detail about his own cool studies.
But, the book isn't just hard science -- it's well-written, engaging, and fun. I read most of it in a weekend. It includes enough of his personality and personal commentary to make it engaging. For example, he talks about his bizarre interactions with Alexander Kogan (behind Cambridge Analytica), his discussions with WhatsApp (who was concerned about misinformation on their platform), and much more. I liked the "inside" perspective from someone who's worked with scientists, governments, and tech companies on really trying to fix the misinformation problem. Many other pop science books I read are just written by journalists and all hype -- whereas this has a lot of nuance, depth, and careful consideration of the science, while also being written in an accessible way.
I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the psychology of misinformation, social media, echo chambers, persuasion... anyone who's remotely concerned about the onslaught of fake news on the internet these days.
To give you a quick preview of the content: he talks about classic studies on why we believe misinformation (we're more likely to believe things that are repeated!), talks about how conspiracy theories fulfill psychological motivations and share many features in common, describes the psychology of motivated reasoning (we believe what we want to believe!), talks about the social media "post-truth" era, talks about how fake news often spreads faster than the truth, discusses the psychology of persuasion (and whether Cambridge Analytica and political ads really influenced us), talks about echo chambers and how polarizing content is likely to go "viral" online, and finally talks about how to solve misinformation through "pre-bunking" -- going into detail about his own cool studies.
But, the book isn't just hard science -- it's well-written, engaging, and fun. I read most of it in a weekend. It includes enough of his personality and personal commentary to make it engaging. For example, he talks about his bizarre interactions with Alexander Kogan (behind Cambridge Analytica), his discussions with WhatsApp (who was concerned about misinformation on their platform), and much more. I liked the "inside" perspective from someone who's worked with scientists, governments, and tech companies on really trying to fix the misinformation problem. Many other pop science books I read are just written by journalists and all hype -- whereas this has a lot of nuance, depth, and careful consideration of the science, while also being written in an accessible way.
I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the psychology of misinformation, social media, echo chambers, persuasion... anyone who's remotely concerned about the onslaught of fake news on the internet these days.
February 7, 2023
This was a really fun read! Linden doesn't preach, he sticks to fun anecdotes and research to prove his theoretical eleven antigens for building up your immunity to misinformation. He's also got an easy reading style - a lot of modern references and simple language to keep the audience engaged.
July 9, 2023
Hot damn did I love this book. I read so many books on this topic, and I always get concerned that each book is going to be exactly the same (because a lot of them are when they’re on a popular topic), but Sander blew my brain up with how good this book is. Sander actually sent me an early copy of the book, but as an audio listener, I just now got a chance to read it and I binged it in a day (I was sitting through a day-long tattoo session, so I had some time).
What separates this book from the others is that researching misinformation is Sander’s life work and are of expertise when it comes to research. Many books on the topic discuss research that others have conducted, and while Sander does discuss a lot of studies in this book, he also has conducted a ton of his own research and experiments. Not only do you learn about why people fall for misinformation, but a primary focus of the book is all of the work Sander and his colleagues have done to help “innoculate” people from misinformation.
The experiments and findings are extremely interesting, and it gives me a ton of hope for the future. They’re doing really interesting and innovative things like running YouTube ads to try and help people scrutinize potentially false information on their own rather than potentially getting into the tribalism of it all, which often doesn’t work.
It was also super interesting reading about how Sander disagrees with some other researchers like Dan Kahan on certain subjects. But I could write about this book all day. Just go grab a copy and start trying to help people avoid getting duped by bad information.
What separates this book from the others is that researching misinformation is Sander’s life work and are of expertise when it comes to research. Many books on the topic discuss research that others have conducted, and while Sander does discuss a lot of studies in this book, he also has conducted a ton of his own research and experiments. Not only do you learn about why people fall for misinformation, but a primary focus of the book is all of the work Sander and his colleagues have done to help “innoculate” people from misinformation.
The experiments and findings are extremely interesting, and it gives me a ton of hope for the future. They’re doing really interesting and innovative things like running YouTube ads to try and help people scrutinize potentially false information on their own rather than potentially getting into the tribalism of it all, which often doesn’t work.
It was also super interesting reading about how Sander disagrees with some other researchers like Dan Kahan on certain subjects. But I could write about this book all day. Just go grab a copy and start trying to help people avoid getting duped by bad information.
April 5, 2023
One of my responsibilities as an English teacher is to help my students build their media literacy skills. In the past couple of years, I have become increasingly convinced, in fact, that media literacy is the most essential skill English classes can cover. The deluge of disinformation and morass of misinformation out there is staggering. Throw in the challenges of deepfakes, and, well, it’s starting to get depressing, how difficult it is to evaluate the quality of information that comes across my feeds. For a long time, I’ve been using the Bad News Game in my classroom to help my adult learners understand how misinformation works. When I was approved via NetGalley to read an eARC of Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity, I didn’t know at the time that Sander van der Linden was one of the researchers behind the game! It’s neat to hear him talk more about how the game was designed and other findings about fake news.
In the first part of the book, van der Linden discusses the current state of research into misinformation and how it affects us from a cognitive science point of view. Part 2 of the book look at the historical spread of misinformation, from ancient Rome to modern times, and introduces concepts like filter bubbles and echo chambers. Part 3 explains the concept that van der Linden and his team have been researching (building upon older research from the mid-twentieth century)—a psychological vaccine that inoculates us against misinformation. The Bad News Game is an example of such a vaccine in action.
My main takeaways from this book (some of which I already knew but which van der Linden explained in more detail): our brains are susceptible to misinformation because of cognitive biases we evolved to deal with environments far different from the ones we find ourselves in today; merely debunking or fact-checking misinformation is seldom very effective; pre-bunking or inoculating people against misinformation can be very effective, but the duration of that efficacy can be variable.
Some of what van der Linden says here might seem obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. What makes Foolproof so valuable is the way that he grounds these perhaps obvious ideas in actual research stretching back decades. Reading this book reminded me of the incredible power of science: without this research, we would be in a much worse off place than we are today. This book gave me hope and made me more optimistic for our future. As grave a threat as misinformation plagues pose, there are solutions out there.
Although van der Linden briefly touches on the role of artificial intelligence (such as deepfakes) in the book, he doesn’t mention generative AI like ChatGPT. This is likely because the book went to press just before ChatGPT and its competitors launched into the limelight. How’s that for timing? While a great deal of what van der Linden says about spotting misinformation applies to these tools as well, I still have questions. ChatGPT and other large language models open up the door to the possibility of generating so much garbage online that accurate information diminishes simply by volume alone. I’m curious if this new dimension to misinformation spread affects van der Linden’s recommendations or his team’s findings at all.
Foolproof is a fascinating and edifying story of using science to push back against one of the most pressing issues in our modern society. Highly recommended for tech people, scholars, scientists, and anyone interested in how misinformation spreads and how we can fight it.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
In the first part of the book, van der Linden discusses the current state of research into misinformation and how it affects us from a cognitive science point of view. Part 2 of the book look at the historical spread of misinformation, from ancient Rome to modern times, and introduces concepts like filter bubbles and echo chambers. Part 3 explains the concept that van der Linden and his team have been researching (building upon older research from the mid-twentieth century)—a psychological vaccine that inoculates us against misinformation. The Bad News Game is an example of such a vaccine in action.
My main takeaways from this book (some of which I already knew but which van der Linden explained in more detail): our brains are susceptible to misinformation because of cognitive biases we evolved to deal with environments far different from the ones we find ourselves in today; merely debunking or fact-checking misinformation is seldom very effective; pre-bunking or inoculating people against misinformation can be very effective, but the duration of that efficacy can be variable.
Some of what van der Linden says here might seem obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. What makes Foolproof so valuable is the way that he grounds these perhaps obvious ideas in actual research stretching back decades. Reading this book reminded me of the incredible power of science: without this research, we would be in a much worse off place than we are today. This book gave me hope and made me more optimistic for our future. As grave a threat as misinformation plagues pose, there are solutions out there.
Although van der Linden briefly touches on the role of artificial intelligence (such as deepfakes) in the book, he doesn’t mention generative AI like ChatGPT. This is likely because the book went to press just before ChatGPT and its competitors launched into the limelight. How’s that for timing? While a great deal of what van der Linden says about spotting misinformation applies to these tools as well, I still have questions. ChatGPT and other large language models open up the door to the possibility of generating so much garbage online that accurate information diminishes simply by volume alone. I’m curious if this new dimension to misinformation spread affects van der Linden’s recommendations or his team’s findings at all.
Foolproof is a fascinating and edifying story of using science to push back against one of the most pressing issues in our modern society. Highly recommended for tech people, scholars, scientists, and anyone interested in how misinformation spreads and how we can fight it.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
March 1, 2023
An interesting look at issues of misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. Like fake news, these topics can be confusing. This book systematically untangles and clarifies how these systems work and outlines a number of techniques to identify and even overcome the effects. Quite academic in tone, but lots of rigor and credibility.
October 29, 2023
Why is the author reading his own audiobook? There are wonderful professional narrators out there. He is not one of them: among other things he kept pronouncing Aristotle "ariss total." Using the author's techniques for detecting BS, one might think that his decision to be a narrator is a red flag for hubris, which is not good for a science book. Indeed, as one keeps reading, it is hard to find the bottom line proof of how his ideas help to eradicate the malady of misinformation.
Over and over again he uses the analogy of immunology and portrays his work as a vaccine against misinformation. This is clever marketing but it doesn't prove anything. As he says himself, we don’t really know, and it doesn’t really matter, what a vaccine's impact is at the individual level. What matters is the impact on the population. So where is the population-level evidence for his solution?
He does talk about some real world applications, but then it all seems pretty unimpressive. For instance, he apparently created the GoViral(?) game and other stuff to combat misinformation about COVID vaccine in the UK and around the world. How did that turn out???! Also, he tells us Twitter followed his methodology and sent “pre-bunking” messages to all 73 million Twitter users to stop misinformation about the 2020 election results. How did that work out???!
Unfortunately, as he hints at himself, his work can seem like just a mask of virtue-signalling for irresponsible gatekeepers. For example, he worked with Google to put little videos before "harmful" material. Why would YouTube disseminate material they have determined to be "harmfully" inaccurate in the first place? This whole idea of making every single person who "consumes" the news into an editor/fact-checker is not fair to the individual consumer or citizen. Publishers of news should be fact-checking.
Sticking with his infectious disease analogy, the big thing in the real world that dramatically decreased routine deaths from infections was society-level change that prevented epidemics: sewers, clean water, better nutrition, better housing, etc. So tell us more about upstream environmental approaches instead of downstream individual-level ones. It would have been good if he had looked more at big-picture factors like inequality that increase susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Even in his individual-level studies, the evidence presented is not super-convincing. The author tells lots of irrelevant anecdotes related to his own research, much of which seems to involve GIGO simulations, psychology lab tests and other types of studies that are maybe intriguing but not strong enough to be the basis for policy recommendations. For example, he wants to protect people’s belief that an annual physical examination is a good idea. He doesn't seem to ever ask what the evidence is for the health benefit of an annual medical exam. He just seems to assume that it’s a good idea because it’s the conventional wisdom. But this default heuristic of adopting the consensus expert opinion as correct is NOT a good way of demonstrating scientific reasoning. Evidence-based-medicine exists as a field in direct opposition to expert opinion because expert opinion has been so notoriously unreliable. The overall weight of the best available evidence is what matters.
In trying to explain some of his concepts on techniques of manipulation, he mentions the book "Merchants of Doubt." I think that books like that are a much better "inoculation" against misinformation. Even better is delving into one topic that you care about: Tobacco, Global Warming, Sugar, Cooking with Gas, whatever, and seeing how the masters of persuasion manage to get millions of people to change behavior based on nonsense. Misinformation is nothing new. Neither is resistance to it and occasional victory against it.
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die
The Origins of Human Disease
The Discovery of Global Warming
Over and over again he uses the analogy of immunology and portrays his work as a vaccine against misinformation. This is clever marketing but it doesn't prove anything. As he says himself, we don’t really know, and it doesn’t really matter, what a vaccine's impact is at the individual level. What matters is the impact on the population. So where is the population-level evidence for his solution?
He does talk about some real world applications, but then it all seems pretty unimpressive. For instance, he apparently created the GoViral(?) game and other stuff to combat misinformation about COVID vaccine in the UK and around the world. How did that turn out???! Also, he tells us Twitter followed his methodology and sent “pre-bunking” messages to all 73 million Twitter users to stop misinformation about the 2020 election results. How did that work out???!
Unfortunately, as he hints at himself, his work can seem like just a mask of virtue-signalling for irresponsible gatekeepers. For example, he worked with Google to put little videos before "harmful" material. Why would YouTube disseminate material they have determined to be "harmfully" inaccurate in the first place? This whole idea of making every single person who "consumes" the news into an editor/fact-checker is not fair to the individual consumer or citizen. Publishers of news should be fact-checking.
Sticking with his infectious disease analogy, the big thing in the real world that dramatically decreased routine deaths from infections was society-level change that prevented epidemics: sewers, clean water, better nutrition, better housing, etc. So tell us more about upstream environmental approaches instead of downstream individual-level ones. It would have been good if he had looked more at big-picture factors like inequality that increase susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Even in his individual-level studies, the evidence presented is not super-convincing. The author tells lots of irrelevant anecdotes related to his own research, much of which seems to involve GIGO simulations, psychology lab tests and other types of studies that are maybe intriguing but not strong enough to be the basis for policy recommendations. For example, he wants to protect people’s belief that an annual physical examination is a good idea. He doesn't seem to ever ask what the evidence is for the health benefit of an annual medical exam. He just seems to assume that it’s a good idea because it’s the conventional wisdom. But this default heuristic of adopting the consensus expert opinion as correct is NOT a good way of demonstrating scientific reasoning. Evidence-based-medicine exists as a field in direct opposition to expert opinion because expert opinion has been so notoriously unreliable. The overall weight of the best available evidence is what matters.
In trying to explain some of his concepts on techniques of manipulation, he mentions the book "Merchants of Doubt." I think that books like that are a much better "inoculation" against misinformation. Even better is delving into one topic that you care about: Tobacco, Global Warming, Sugar, Cooking with Gas, whatever, and seeing how the masters of persuasion manage to get millions of people to change behavior based on nonsense. Misinformation is nothing new. Neither is resistance to it and occasional victory against it.
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die
The Origins of Human Disease
The Discovery of Global Warming
December 5, 2025
A delightfully pragmatic book that did a great job helping me to understand where misinformation is most likely to trip us up.
What I particularly enjoyed about this book was how it went beyond the usual bombastic hysteria that pervades any discussion of social media and misinformation. You know the type - doomsayers who make it sound like we’re continually on the brink of a digital apocalypse. Okay, I get it, this stuff is bad, but can we just chill out a little bit and have an intelligent discussion? Van der Linden takes a different approach, offering a calmer, more balanced view that really hit home for me.
The book has a solid foundation in science, which was a breath of fresh air. I mean, he doesn’t just throw around random opinions; he backs up everything with research and data. It’s clear he knows his stuff, and that scientific approach makes the arguments way more convincing. As I read, I felt like I was learning how misinformation actually works and why it’s so effective, which is something that often gets lost in the noise.
What I also appreciated throughout the book was van der Linden's tendency to question his own assumptions and present opposing viewpoints. He’s not afraid to say, “Hey, I might be wrong about this,” and that kind of openness made me trust his insights even more. It’s rare to find an author who’s willing to show the limits of their own arguments, and it made the book feel more genuine.
The Good:
One of the book's strengths is its focus on understanding how social media impacts our brains. We all know social media plays a huge role in how information spreads, but really grasping how it influences us is key if we're going to fight back against misinformation. Van der Linden does a fantastic job of laying out where our vulnerabilities lie, and I found this super enlightening.
I came away from this book feeling better educated about where the biggest problems with misinformation are. But more importantly, I now have some solid strategies for protecting myself and the people I care about from the onslaught of false information. Van der Linden gives practical advice on how to build mental defenses, which is something we could all use these days.
The Not-So-Good:
Of course, no book is perfect. There were a few things I found a bit off-putting. For one, van der Linden sometimes gets a little too caught up in academic jargon. Now, I don’t mind a bit of science talk, but it might be a bit much for someone who prefers a more straightforward style. It's like when a friend starts using technical terms at a party - you might zone out a bit!
There were also parts of the book that felt a bit repetitive. Some points are reiterated several times, which, while helpful for emphasis, can make the reading experience feel a bit dragged out. A tighter edit could’ve kept things moving a little better.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, "Foolproof" is a thoughtful read that gives us a much-needed perspective on misinformation without the usual doom and gloom. If you’re looking for a book to help you understand how misinformation spreads and how to protect yourself, this is a great starting point. It’s a book that not only educates but also gives you the tools to navigate the chaos with confidence.
What I particularly enjoyed about this book was how it went beyond the usual bombastic hysteria that pervades any discussion of social media and misinformation. You know the type - doomsayers who make it sound like we’re continually on the brink of a digital apocalypse. Okay, I get it, this stuff is bad, but can we just chill out a little bit and have an intelligent discussion? Van der Linden takes a different approach, offering a calmer, more balanced view that really hit home for me.
The book has a solid foundation in science, which was a breath of fresh air. I mean, he doesn’t just throw around random opinions; he backs up everything with research and data. It’s clear he knows his stuff, and that scientific approach makes the arguments way more convincing. As I read, I felt like I was learning how misinformation actually works and why it’s so effective, which is something that often gets lost in the noise.
What I also appreciated throughout the book was van der Linden's tendency to question his own assumptions and present opposing viewpoints. He’s not afraid to say, “Hey, I might be wrong about this,” and that kind of openness made me trust his insights even more. It’s rare to find an author who’s willing to show the limits of their own arguments, and it made the book feel more genuine.
The Good:
One of the book's strengths is its focus on understanding how social media impacts our brains. We all know social media plays a huge role in how information spreads, but really grasping how it influences us is key if we're going to fight back against misinformation. Van der Linden does a fantastic job of laying out where our vulnerabilities lie, and I found this super enlightening.
I came away from this book feeling better educated about where the biggest problems with misinformation are. But more importantly, I now have some solid strategies for protecting myself and the people I care about from the onslaught of false information. Van der Linden gives practical advice on how to build mental defenses, which is something we could all use these days.
The Not-So-Good:
Of course, no book is perfect. There were a few things I found a bit off-putting. For one, van der Linden sometimes gets a little too caught up in academic jargon. Now, I don’t mind a bit of science talk, but it might be a bit much for someone who prefers a more straightforward style. It's like when a friend starts using technical terms at a party - you might zone out a bit!
There were also parts of the book that felt a bit repetitive. Some points are reiterated several times, which, while helpful for emphasis, can make the reading experience feel a bit dragged out. A tighter edit could’ve kept things moving a little better.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, "Foolproof" is a thoughtful read that gives us a much-needed perspective on misinformation without the usual doom and gloom. If you’re looking for a book to help you understand how misinformation spreads and how to protect yourself, this is a great starting point. It’s a book that not only educates but also gives you the tools to navigate the chaos with confidence.
April 27, 2023
When we encounter new information, our brains use perception to interpret and make sense of it. Our sensory organs gather these tidbits from the environment, which is then processed by our brains to create a mental representation of the world around us.
In doing so, we may use a complex set of cognitive processes and social cues to discern fact from fiction and while there are different kinds of interventions, there is no doubt that there is agreement on the bottom line, which is that the problem is much bigger than just fake news.
In such situations, it is important to remain skeptical and critically evaluate new information to ensure that we are making informed decisions based on reliable information, and that is where the book, ‘Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity’ by author Sander van der Linden comes extremely handy.
Reading the book, we will understand and realize that proactive debunking of false or misleading information before it spreads widely is a strategy that can aim to prevent the harmful effects of misinformation by exposing it as false or inaccurate before it gains traction. So, I am going to give this FIVE STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In doing so, we may use a complex set of cognitive processes and social cues to discern fact from fiction and while there are different kinds of interventions, there is no doubt that there is agreement on the bottom line, which is that the problem is much bigger than just fake news.
In such situations, it is important to remain skeptical and critically evaluate new information to ensure that we are making informed decisions based on reliable information, and that is where the book, ‘Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity’ by author Sander van der Linden comes extremely handy.
Reading the book, we will understand and realize that proactive debunking of false or misleading information before it spreads widely is a strategy that can aim to prevent the harmful effects of misinformation by exposing it as false or inaccurate before it gains traction. So, I am going to give this FIVE STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
April 23, 2024
This Cambridge researcher founded a team that developed a way to pre-bunk [i.e., debunk before the fact], or inoculate people from, targeted disinformation. It’s an interesting story, and the roll out seems to be effective, as far as it can reach, but I was saddened to note that it depends on people willing to spend 10 - 15 minutes out of their very busy web surfing day. However, according to the author, most people prefer to be able to withstand misinformation, so people of all political persuasions seem willing to get prepared. It may not be in time to save Ukraine from the damage caused by Russian disinformation in our own Congress, but perhaps over the long run…
Update: well, The House managed to do the right thing this time. Here’s hoping it’s the start of a trend.
Update: well, The House managed to do the right thing this time. Here’s hoping it’s the start of a trend.
November 21, 2023
Interesting. A scientific view of how our minds are tricked and how modern tech has made this a pretty bad thing and also how to not be fooled. No one wants to be a fool.
March 27, 2023
Imagine there was a way to prevent Fake News victimhood. Cambridge University psychologist Sander Van der Linden thinks his team has found it. He calls it a vaccine because it acts just like one in every phase of its performance. In Foolproof, he describes the thinking in its creation, the symptoms it kills, the testing they undertook, the quality of the immunity it provides, and the means to get it out there for the whole world to stop the nonsense. A Nobel Peace Prize must surely await if he can pull it off.
The vaccine is a program of communications. It uses strategies like deflating the fake news before it is even launched. And making readers aware of the various approaches and aspects of Fake News so they become obvious, if not annoying. Van der Linden is now calling himself a cognitive immunologist.
One of the important discoveries was less emphasis on the truth, which is difficult to implement, and more on things like the emotional appeal, the conspiracy overtones, the attempt to polarize the audience, and trolling people to demonize them. Hate spreading. Van der Linden says “I’ve found both in our research and over the course of many personal conversations that unveiling the techniques of manipulation encounters less resistance than trying to tell people what the facts are.” Learn from this.
Trolls and conspiracy theorists like to quote experts who have zero expertise in the subject, or world-famous academics - who cannot be named. Sometimes it’s a bogus think tank of one person, and even then they exaggerate its claims. These aspects are universal, and major warning signs. Those who have been immunized can apply them to whatever Fake News comes at them. Van der Linden has a full deck of such signposts.
Here’s the serum: the team created a role playing game called Bad News (still available) for online use. Players portrayed trolls of varying sorts, and learned what their tricks and strategies were by writing posts in their place, according to their goals and characters. Took maybe half an hour, and awareness of Fake News was dramatically heightened thereafter. Researchers kept coming back to the players and found the immunization held. A booster shot refresher helped even more. The vaccine contains a discredited (diminished, inactive, killed) bit of the virus (Fake News), the better to understand what can really knock a user down, and reinforce their immune system to defeat it.
Not everyone is a gamer, so they needed another way to get to herd immunity, which likely means 90-95% of the population, not an easy task. They tried short videos, no longer than a Youtube ad, and it worked as well. It seems people don’t think their way through Fake News, but once they are made aware of how Fake News works, it stays with them and they can pick them out of the news stream. Armed this way, users seem able to identify and dismiss Fake News on their own. That’s big.
The truth problem is very well known; weird and fake news travel farther and faster than real news. His research found that real news took six times as long to reach 1500 subjects in his lab studies as Fake News did. People just naturally prefer the drama that Fake News offers. Real news tends to be flat and boring by comparison: “Falsehoods were 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted than true claims,” he says. Let’s face it: a post proclaiming a petition with a hundred thousand signatures has no chance against one that employs words like murder or hate. Anger and outrage create clicks.
Countering those falsehoods in advance is called prebunking (as opposed to debunking). Prebunking can be as simple as: Look out for news that says… or: Any day now they’ll try to make you believe that... Don’t fall for it. It’s all lies, says the serum.
Prebunking also sports a terrific success rate. It apparently does wonders in combatting climate deniers. It stands in contrast to teaching users the techniques they use to promote those falsehoods, the other half of the battle. With both prebunking and technique awareness kicking in, Fakes News doesn’t have a chance.
He describes how bots will start an argument – both sides— leaving the reader confused and just wanting out. Maybe not voting at all, or not believing some important real news. Plus, with very little retweeting or posting at all, the message gets to millions around the world. Math is the final nail in truth’s coffin.
Microtargeting is a very hot new trend, because a quarter of national elections are decided by margins of 3% or less. Converting individual votes becomes very highly desirable. For all the machinations of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and various shady data brokers (and Van der Linden had first hand experience with them), we still don’t know if microtargeting works in political contests. Nonetheless, it’s full steam ahead. We’re now down to nanotargeting: customizing ads for individual users. The problem, of course, is the other side is doing exactly the same thing.
There’s also an analysis of radicalization. Extremists have a four point method to their technique:
1. A vulnerable target, possibly going through a rough patch or looking for validation.
2. Gaining their trust through messaging and sharing videos.
3. Isolating them from friends and family.
4. Getting them to perform some small act to show their commitment.
Along the way throughout the book, the team gets calls like Batman and the Batphone, from the UK government or the United Nations or social media giants in the US to help solve some public relations disaster or ongoing Fake News crisis. Even furniture seller Wayfair needed their help when a line of furniture using women’s names led to the absurd conspiracy theory that the names were there for pedophiles to purchase those items because they came with babies in the drawers. And somehow, this was believable, whereas denying it was not. It could have been a lot more interesting had Van der Linden not cut the stories short due to corporate or national security constraints.
In clever title awards, Foolproof gets the trophy. A thing of rare beauty. But the book goes on for way too long. No award for couldn’t put it down-ness. At one point, I realized I couldn’t remember what the book was supposed to be about. That’s how involved it gets. There are way too many studies. And I’m not the only one to be unimpressed. After one such study, Gizmodo’s coverage was:
RESEARCHERS PRODUCE OBVIOUS STUDY ON DUNKING BECAUSE THEY’RE NERDS…
A new report the University of Cambridge confirmed what many of us
have known for years: being a contrarian asshole on social media
is a great way to get people clicking on your posts.
The studies are endless, and ever more granular. They discover the different approaches for convincing someone to change their vote compared to getting them click on an ad or buy a product. To understand it, they use code words like OCEAN, CONSPIRE and DEPICT where each letter stands for a trait that becomes a bucket for stereotyping users. It is a clear example of never wanting to see how sausage is made, no matter how good the end product might be.
All the studies seem to end with the researchers at least “surprised” and more often “shocked” at the positive outcomes. Readers will be treated to an endless description of what the thought processes were, what study requirements are, and the validity of psychological studies in general. However, unlike most studies, this team’s are replicable and the same or better results have been achieved by others doing the same thing.
Pretty much all of the concrete findings are in the last third of the book, which I was afraid of from the forecast in the prologue. Readers could quite happily start with Part III, and go back for the rest if desired. All the salient points from parts I and II are repeated in Part III.
At the end, Van der Linden admits these sorts of inoculations are not new. They go back to Aristotle, and how to destroy your debating opponent, in advance. Lawyers use them in court to deflate their opponent’s dramatic presentation to the jury before they can even give it. That’s not to diminish what this team has put together. Rather, it says these techniques work. Pulling a bunch of them into a longlasting vaccination to combat Fake News is the innovation.
Unfortunately, just like in medicine, getting everyone to take the vaccine is an even bigger challenge. A lot of people seem totally comfortable with all the conspiracies. And can’t wait for more.
David Wineberg
(Foolproof, Sander Van Der Linden, March 2023)
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
The vaccine is a program of communications. It uses strategies like deflating the fake news before it is even launched. And making readers aware of the various approaches and aspects of Fake News so they become obvious, if not annoying. Van der Linden is now calling himself a cognitive immunologist.
One of the important discoveries was less emphasis on the truth, which is difficult to implement, and more on things like the emotional appeal, the conspiracy overtones, the attempt to polarize the audience, and trolling people to demonize them. Hate spreading. Van der Linden says “I’ve found both in our research and over the course of many personal conversations that unveiling the techniques of manipulation encounters less resistance than trying to tell people what the facts are.” Learn from this.
Trolls and conspiracy theorists like to quote experts who have zero expertise in the subject, or world-famous academics - who cannot be named. Sometimes it’s a bogus think tank of one person, and even then they exaggerate its claims. These aspects are universal, and major warning signs. Those who have been immunized can apply them to whatever Fake News comes at them. Van der Linden has a full deck of such signposts.
Here’s the serum: the team created a role playing game called Bad News (still available) for online use. Players portrayed trolls of varying sorts, and learned what their tricks and strategies were by writing posts in their place, according to their goals and characters. Took maybe half an hour, and awareness of Fake News was dramatically heightened thereafter. Researchers kept coming back to the players and found the immunization held. A booster shot refresher helped even more. The vaccine contains a discredited (diminished, inactive, killed) bit of the virus (Fake News), the better to understand what can really knock a user down, and reinforce their immune system to defeat it.
Not everyone is a gamer, so they needed another way to get to herd immunity, which likely means 90-95% of the population, not an easy task. They tried short videos, no longer than a Youtube ad, and it worked as well. It seems people don’t think their way through Fake News, but once they are made aware of how Fake News works, it stays with them and they can pick them out of the news stream. Armed this way, users seem able to identify and dismiss Fake News on their own. That’s big.
The truth problem is very well known; weird and fake news travel farther and faster than real news. His research found that real news took six times as long to reach 1500 subjects in his lab studies as Fake News did. People just naturally prefer the drama that Fake News offers. Real news tends to be flat and boring by comparison: “Falsehoods were 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted than true claims,” he says. Let’s face it: a post proclaiming a petition with a hundred thousand signatures has no chance against one that employs words like murder or hate. Anger and outrage create clicks.
Countering those falsehoods in advance is called prebunking (as opposed to debunking). Prebunking can be as simple as: Look out for news that says… or: Any day now they’ll try to make you believe that... Don’t fall for it. It’s all lies, says the serum.
Prebunking also sports a terrific success rate. It apparently does wonders in combatting climate deniers. It stands in contrast to teaching users the techniques they use to promote those falsehoods, the other half of the battle. With both prebunking and technique awareness kicking in, Fakes News doesn’t have a chance.
He describes how bots will start an argument – both sides— leaving the reader confused and just wanting out. Maybe not voting at all, or not believing some important real news. Plus, with very little retweeting or posting at all, the message gets to millions around the world. Math is the final nail in truth’s coffin.
Microtargeting is a very hot new trend, because a quarter of national elections are decided by margins of 3% or less. Converting individual votes becomes very highly desirable. For all the machinations of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and various shady data brokers (and Van der Linden had first hand experience with them), we still don’t know if microtargeting works in political contests. Nonetheless, it’s full steam ahead. We’re now down to nanotargeting: customizing ads for individual users. The problem, of course, is the other side is doing exactly the same thing.
There’s also an analysis of radicalization. Extremists have a four point method to their technique:
1. A vulnerable target, possibly going through a rough patch or looking for validation.
2. Gaining their trust through messaging and sharing videos.
3. Isolating them from friends and family.
4. Getting them to perform some small act to show their commitment.
Along the way throughout the book, the team gets calls like Batman and the Batphone, from the UK government or the United Nations or social media giants in the US to help solve some public relations disaster or ongoing Fake News crisis. Even furniture seller Wayfair needed their help when a line of furniture using women’s names led to the absurd conspiracy theory that the names were there for pedophiles to purchase those items because they came with babies in the drawers. And somehow, this was believable, whereas denying it was not. It could have been a lot more interesting had Van der Linden not cut the stories short due to corporate or national security constraints.
In clever title awards, Foolproof gets the trophy. A thing of rare beauty. But the book goes on for way too long. No award for couldn’t put it down-ness. At one point, I realized I couldn’t remember what the book was supposed to be about. That’s how involved it gets. There are way too many studies. And I’m not the only one to be unimpressed. After one such study, Gizmodo’s coverage was:
RESEARCHERS PRODUCE OBVIOUS STUDY ON DUNKING BECAUSE THEY’RE NERDS…
A new report the University of Cambridge confirmed what many of us
have known for years: being a contrarian asshole on social media
is a great way to get people clicking on your posts.
The studies are endless, and ever more granular. They discover the different approaches for convincing someone to change their vote compared to getting them click on an ad or buy a product. To understand it, they use code words like OCEAN, CONSPIRE and DEPICT where each letter stands for a trait that becomes a bucket for stereotyping users. It is a clear example of never wanting to see how sausage is made, no matter how good the end product might be.
All the studies seem to end with the researchers at least “surprised” and more often “shocked” at the positive outcomes. Readers will be treated to an endless description of what the thought processes were, what study requirements are, and the validity of psychological studies in general. However, unlike most studies, this team’s are replicable and the same or better results have been achieved by others doing the same thing.
Pretty much all of the concrete findings are in the last third of the book, which I was afraid of from the forecast in the prologue. Readers could quite happily start with Part III, and go back for the rest if desired. All the salient points from parts I and II are repeated in Part III.
At the end, Van der Linden admits these sorts of inoculations are not new. They go back to Aristotle, and how to destroy your debating opponent, in advance. Lawyers use them in court to deflate their opponent’s dramatic presentation to the jury before they can even give it. That’s not to diminish what this team has put together. Rather, it says these techniques work. Pulling a bunch of them into a longlasting vaccination to combat Fake News is the innovation.
Unfortunately, just like in medicine, getting everyone to take the vaccine is an even bigger challenge. A lot of people seem totally comfortable with all the conspiracies. And can’t wait for more.
David Wineberg
(Foolproof, Sander Van Der Linden, March 2023)
If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...
February 15, 2024
This book is dense in content but so so important, especially as fake news of all kinds continues to come at us on a daily basis, and as more and more propaganda tactics and straight lies come out of Israel as justification for genocide. Reading about fake news in a book is one thing; seeing it employed effectively on the world’s stage is another thing altogether.
The author is brilliant. He and his team have created some incredible online “games” that anyone can use to help inoculate themselves against fake news - not only previous fake news stories that we’ve all heard, but also stories to come - by teaching us the hallmarks of a fake news story and how to craft one. When you have crafted fake news for yourself, it’s much easier to spot the tactics at play in the real world.
This book became very real for me as I finished it and nearly simultaneously heard that several countries pulled their funding out of the UNRWA, one of the only organizations able to provide food to the millions of displaced Palestinians in Rafah, due to a story that claimed 13 UNRWA workers were secretly Hamas militants. The source of the news? Israel itself. This story employs a hallmark of fake news discussed in the book - conspiratorial thinking. And who stands to gain by this story? Israel again.
Source: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/7...
This book is more important now than ever. If nothing else, take part in the games produced by this brilliant author and inoculate yourself against fake news. The world needs more people who can spot lies in action, especially now.
https://www.getbadnews.com/en
The author is brilliant. He and his team have created some incredible online “games” that anyone can use to help inoculate themselves against fake news - not only previous fake news stories that we’ve all heard, but also stories to come - by teaching us the hallmarks of a fake news story and how to craft one. When you have crafted fake news for yourself, it’s much easier to spot the tactics at play in the real world.
This book became very real for me as I finished it and nearly simultaneously heard that several countries pulled their funding out of the UNRWA, one of the only organizations able to provide food to the millions of displaced Palestinians in Rafah, due to a story that claimed 13 UNRWA workers were secretly Hamas militants. The source of the news? Israel itself. This story employs a hallmark of fake news discussed in the book - conspiratorial thinking. And who stands to gain by this story? Israel again.
Source: https://www.democracynow.org/2024/2/7...
This book is more important now than ever. If nothing else, take part in the games produced by this brilliant author and inoculate yourself against fake news. The world needs more people who can spot lies in action, especially now.
https://www.getbadnews.com/en
January 26, 2023
This book is dense. There is much in-depth breakdown of the author's and other scientists experiment results, so you should be prepared to wade through science heavy waters. Not that it was not accessible for the non-scientific reader. I do not think it is possible to be thorough in your explanation of science based research without being scientific. I do not think the reader will get a full understanding of the study without it.
I was not personally a fan of the angle the author chose to approach the book. I found the "vaccine" angle to be a bit misleading and a trending-use of the word and leading to a loss of its meaning (as it is my understand that a 'vaccine' eradicates a virus or disease, not inoculates against). I found what the author was proposing with his "vaccination' was just teaching critical thinking. But I digress. Aside from the book angle, the author highlights both sides of the issue well and does a good job of explaining his research on how misinformation spreads. It was an enlightening read of long-form journalism.
I do not engage in social media, so many of the examples the author was using in terms of social media seemed (at times) quite obvious in their lack of truth and some of the 'antigens' to be common sense. However, I did gain knowledge from this book, as we are all susceptible to being lead astray. My only misgiving about the book, was that I found it to be doing a bit of the same thing that he was teaching against: manipulating people's thinking. Used in particular way, the information presented could be used nefariously, but there are always consequences with benefits.
Thank you W.W. Norton & Company for the ARC.
I was not personally a fan of the angle the author chose to approach the book. I found the "vaccine" angle to be a bit misleading and a trending-use of the word and leading to a loss of its meaning (as it is my understand that a 'vaccine' eradicates a virus or disease, not inoculates against). I found what the author was proposing with his "vaccination' was just teaching critical thinking. But I digress. Aside from the book angle, the author highlights both sides of the issue well and does a good job of explaining his research on how misinformation spreads. It was an enlightening read of long-form journalism.
I do not engage in social media, so many of the examples the author was using in terms of social media seemed (at times) quite obvious in their lack of truth and some of the 'antigens' to be common sense. However, I did gain knowledge from this book, as we are all susceptible to being lead astray. My only misgiving about the book, was that I found it to be doing a bit of the same thing that he was teaching against: manipulating people's thinking. Used in particular way, the information presented could be used nefariously, but there are always consequences with benefits.
Thank you W.W. Norton & Company for the ARC.
February 26, 2025
An important read full of exercises and information. Thought it was a necessary read in all of this shit storm we are living in.
dnf
June 6, 2025DNF. Covers a lot of cognitive biases and such that I'm already acquainted with. Just feels like a psychology course rehash with some recent political examples.
July 31, 2024
"Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity" by Sander van der Linden provides a comprehensive approach to understanding and combating misinformation drawing heavily from his own research. I've been on a misinformation kick lately, and this book pairs very nicely with "The Chaos Machine" by Max Fisher. The consistent metaphor used throughout the book is that the spread of misinformation follows very similar principles to the spread of a virus, and that we can draw on ideas from how we fight viruses to also fight the spread of misinformation. Particularly, he uses the metaphor of cognitive "antigens." Each chapter of the book focuses on an element of the spread of misinformation, and then he provides a strategy, or antigen, to that particular problem at the end of the chapter. The book is further separated into three sections. The first section is more about our cognitive weaknesses that are susceptible to misinformation infections at an individual level, and the second section is more about how larger global factors cause "infodemics" and focuses on the dynamics of the spread of misinformation. The third part of the book is focused on newer research strategies to build psychological "vaccines."
In part 1, we learn about some of the ways that our minds are susceptible to misinformation. The first chapter discusses the illusory truth effect, which is where repeated exposure to false information makes it seem truer. This also seems to be related to false memories, in that people can misremember events that they never experienced after repeated suggestions.
Chapter 2 explores how personal motivations and beliefs shape our acceptance of information. This seems to be mostly relevant for certain kinds of misinformation, such as when the evidence is involved in something political. Van der Linden thinks that people are truly motivated by accuracy, but that the motivation for accuracy competes with biases and the motivation to agree with one's social network. One of my favorite experiments presented in the book was when researchers found that people were much better at identifying misinformation that was in line with their political beliefs when they were additionally motivated by being paid for being accurate.
Chapter 3 discusses the strange conspiracy effect and what conspiracies have in common. Conspiracies seem to be particularly tough to address because they are often immune to presentation of evidence. I found it really interesting that often people who believe one conspiracy theory are much more likely to believe other conspiracy theories, even if some of those theories contradict each other.
Chapter 4 discusses why debunking is not always effective. Just being exposed to misinformation makes us more likely to believe it, and debunking efforts often fail to erase initial false beliefs. It is hard to forget false information, especially if it is not replaced by an even more satisfying narrative.
Part 2 explores more global patterns in the spread of misinformation. We see that tactics for spreading misinformation haven't changed much, but social media is so much more far-reaching that it is significantly faster and more effective than in Ancient Rome. This is enhanced by social media algorithms that create echo chambers and filter bubbles and prioritize polarizing content. Those factors are more of a side-effect of trying to maximize engagement, but in other cases, actors try to purposefully spread misinformation as a primary goal (usually to increase polarization). They do this by using targeted messaging and emotional manipulation.
Part 3 introduces a lot of van der Linden's own research and attempts to build resilience against misinformation through the new science of prebunking. This involves exposing people to weakened doses of misinformation to build resistance to future exposure. You can either do this with fact-based strategies for specific kinds of likely misinformation or you can expose people to the general tools that people use to spread misinformation. His game, "Bad News" teaches players how to recognize misinformation techniques by allowing players to become fake news masters themselves. Playing the game seems to reduce susceptibility to misinformation. He is trying to upscale this strategy to expose more people to inoculation with the goal of reaching psychological herd immunity to misinformation.
Overall, he advocates for 11 antigens to stop the spread of misinformation:
1. Make the Truth More Fluent
2. Incentive accuracy
3. Learn the telltale sounds of conspiracy theories
4. Minimize the continued influence of misinformation
5. Break the virality of misinformation on social media
6. Avoid echo chambers and filter bubbles
7. Be aware of micro-targeting
8. Inoculate against misinformation
9. Identify and prebunk the 6 degrees of manipulation (discrediting, emotion, polarization, impersonation, conspiracy, and trolling)
10. Help spread inoculation against misinformation
11. Inoculate your friends of family
I thought the book was practical and interesting, and I really want to start using some of the prebunking strategies in my day-to-day conversations. This book, like the Chaos Machine, made me think deeply about what level of responsibility social media has. Social media companies have shown that the tighter control on speech (e.g. drawing stricter hate speech thresholds), the less engagement and thus profit. Therefore, I think that it is up to the public to advocate for controls on misinformation. It has to be legislated. It is silly to think that a social media company will do it themselves. But I don't know the best way to do that and where to draw the line.
I was also left feeling pretty pessimistic about the future, mainly becuase of how quickly deep fakes are improving. I think that in a very short period of time, it will be virtually impossible to tell real and fake videos apart from each other. Van der Linden discusses how "discrediting" someone is a common strategy helps spread misinformation, and it seems like discrediting will become a rampant deep fake strategy. For instance, if I have a poor quality cell phone recording of a prominent politician saying something that makes them lose credibility, it will be very difficult to re-establish credibility, since it will just be their word versus the video.
Overall, a great read that is well-structured that will provide you with tools and resources to identify misinformation and to help others identify misinformation.
In part 1, we learn about some of the ways that our minds are susceptible to misinformation. The first chapter discusses the illusory truth effect, which is where repeated exposure to false information makes it seem truer. This also seems to be related to false memories, in that people can misremember events that they never experienced after repeated suggestions.
Chapter 2 explores how personal motivations and beliefs shape our acceptance of information. This seems to be mostly relevant for certain kinds of misinformation, such as when the evidence is involved in something political. Van der Linden thinks that people are truly motivated by accuracy, but that the motivation for accuracy competes with biases and the motivation to agree with one's social network. One of my favorite experiments presented in the book was when researchers found that people were much better at identifying misinformation that was in line with their political beliefs when they were additionally motivated by being paid for being accurate.
Chapter 3 discusses the strange conspiracy effect and what conspiracies have in common. Conspiracies seem to be particularly tough to address because they are often immune to presentation of evidence. I found it really interesting that often people who believe one conspiracy theory are much more likely to believe other conspiracy theories, even if some of those theories contradict each other.
Chapter 4 discusses why debunking is not always effective. Just being exposed to misinformation makes us more likely to believe it, and debunking efforts often fail to erase initial false beliefs. It is hard to forget false information, especially if it is not replaced by an even more satisfying narrative.
Part 2 explores more global patterns in the spread of misinformation. We see that tactics for spreading misinformation haven't changed much, but social media is so much more far-reaching that it is significantly faster and more effective than in Ancient Rome. This is enhanced by social media algorithms that create echo chambers and filter bubbles and prioritize polarizing content. Those factors are more of a side-effect of trying to maximize engagement, but in other cases, actors try to purposefully spread misinformation as a primary goal (usually to increase polarization). They do this by using targeted messaging and emotional manipulation.
Part 3 introduces a lot of van der Linden's own research and attempts to build resilience against misinformation through the new science of prebunking. This involves exposing people to weakened doses of misinformation to build resistance to future exposure. You can either do this with fact-based strategies for specific kinds of likely misinformation or you can expose people to the general tools that people use to spread misinformation. His game, "Bad News" teaches players how to recognize misinformation techniques by allowing players to become fake news masters themselves. Playing the game seems to reduce susceptibility to misinformation. He is trying to upscale this strategy to expose more people to inoculation with the goal of reaching psychological herd immunity to misinformation.
Overall, he advocates for 11 antigens to stop the spread of misinformation:
1. Make the Truth More Fluent
2. Incentive accuracy
3. Learn the telltale sounds of conspiracy theories
4. Minimize the continued influence of misinformation
5. Break the virality of misinformation on social media
6. Avoid echo chambers and filter bubbles
7. Be aware of micro-targeting
8. Inoculate against misinformation
9. Identify and prebunk the 6 degrees of manipulation (discrediting, emotion, polarization, impersonation, conspiracy, and trolling)
10. Help spread inoculation against misinformation
11. Inoculate your friends of family
I thought the book was practical and interesting, and I really want to start using some of the prebunking strategies in my day-to-day conversations. This book, like the Chaos Machine, made me think deeply about what level of responsibility social media has. Social media companies have shown that the tighter control on speech (e.g. drawing stricter hate speech thresholds), the less engagement and thus profit. Therefore, I think that it is up to the public to advocate for controls on misinformation. It has to be legislated. It is silly to think that a social media company will do it themselves. But I don't know the best way to do that and where to draw the line.
I was also left feeling pretty pessimistic about the future, mainly becuase of how quickly deep fakes are improving. I think that in a very short period of time, it will be virtually impossible to tell real and fake videos apart from each other. Van der Linden discusses how "discrediting" someone is a common strategy helps spread misinformation, and it seems like discrediting will become a rampant deep fake strategy. For instance, if I have a poor quality cell phone recording of a prominent politician saying something that makes them lose credibility, it will be very difficult to re-establish credibility, since it will just be their word versus the video.
Overall, a great read that is well-structured that will provide you with tools and resources to identify misinformation and to help others identify misinformation.
January 28, 2025
Van der Linden explains the psychology behind misinformation and conspiracy theories, and the technology that encourages their spread. Through micro-tagging, our social media likes can be used to classify our personality and determine the messaging that is the most likely to push us toward a specific product, candidate, or belief system. Social media algorithms then serve up the same worldview to us over and over, isolating us from more challenging ideas.
Like many books of this type, the author's solutions seem insufficient to address the problem that he spent hundreds of pages building up. The goal is to develop "herd immunity" across society, so that most people can detect shallow fakes and manipulative content. He talks about the mobile games he's made for people to test their media literacy or pretend to be a social media troll. His main bit of advice is to get ahead of the problem by talking to friends and family members about emerging misinformation before they can encounter it. I would have liked a lot more examples of how to do that in a way that doesn't just set everyone off.
Like many books of this type, the author's solutions seem insufficient to address the problem that he spent hundreds of pages building up. The goal is to develop "herd immunity" across society, so that most people can detect shallow fakes and manipulative content. He talks about the mobile games he's made for people to test their media literacy or pretend to be a social media troll. His main bit of advice is to get ahead of the problem by talking to friends and family members about emerging misinformation before they can encounter it. I would have liked a lot more examples of how to do that in a way that doesn't just set everyone off.
September 26, 2024
In 1789, Thomas Jefferson remarked that “Democracy depends on an informed electorate.” Do we have that? Misinformation in mass media is a concern today and this book attempts to address it. The book’s thesis is based on a very weak analogy: misinformation is like a biological virus and can be neutralized by inoculation with the truth. That’s the sort of loose reasoning with undefined terms one expects in misinformation campaigns.
Scientific evidence demonstrates that some people are less persuaded by misinformation if they have been previously warned that some is coming their way, if they know the telltale markers of misinformation, and if they have contrary information to stand up against it. Such factors make up the so-called inoculation effect.
The size and significance of the claimed inoculation are not reported. This is not a scientific book and only vague and questionable summaries are given. Graphs are presented without scaled axes, categorical data are discussed as if they were continuous, and differences of less than one point on survey results are cited as important results. Such hand-waving makes all the author’s claims less credible.
Footnotes refer you to “Chapter Notes” in the back of the book, which in turn refer you to a bibliography, not a proper list of references. Of the many hundreds of entries in the bibliography, about half are articles in newspapers, magazines, popular books, and online websites. Of the peer-reviewed journals cited, most are general survey articles rather than reports of scientific results. Maybe that’s all a popular book needs to provide, but I would have appreciated more direct, solid, and accessible references for a book claiming to discriminate information from misinformation.
Throughout the text, terms are not defined, making the discussions and conclusions infuriatingly vague. The first third of the book emphasizes that “the brain” decides, judges, determines, is vulnerable, and is persuaded, as if it were a little homunculus in the head. “The person” is out of the picture, helpless and not responsible because “the brain” does all the thinking and believing. It’s utter nonsense, and I had little idea about what the first third of the book was trying to say.
True information versus misinformation are not defined, a rather serious omission for a book on this topic. If I say I have 2 pennies in my pocket right now, is that true or false? Information or misinformation? Ha! You don’t know, do you? Actually I don’t have any pennies. See how your brain is vulnerable to misinformation? But that’s not how these terms are properly used.
The author could have put a little effort into defining what he means by true facts, genuine information, misinformation. Likewise, what is a conspiracy? He gives lots of examples, such as that NASA faked the moon landing, but are there no legitimate conspiracy theories? The CIA really did conspire to overthrow governments in Iran and Chile. Those were conspiracy theories until they were proved true. Did Jeffrey Epstein really hang himself? In the absence of adequate information, conspiratorial explanations flourish. It doesn’t make them false just because they’re conspiracies. What’s missing is information.
I was not persuaded by the book’s main thesis that persuasion by misinformation can be meaningfully blocked with prior facts. Nevertheless, I did get some insights out of the book. One is that the people who control the sources of political and social information, mainly the government and large for-profit entities, don’t give out enough of it to thwart misinformation campaigns. It’s hard to argue anymore that tobacco does not cause cancer or that seat belts don’t save lives. But when the information is hoarded, misinformation flourishes.
I also realized that with the internet and social media “the electorate” that Thomas Jefferson was worried about has fractionated into thousands of micro-communities. That is a serious obstacle to the flow of information, and it facilitates misinformation.
The book also made me worry about the state of general education. People who think they can catch the flu from a flu vaccine don’t actually know what a vaccine is. The degree of ignorance about the basic facts of physical, social, and political life is frightening.
I think this book is well-intentioned but it came across to me as an exercise in persuasion using more than a little misinformation.
van der Linden, Sander (2023). Foolproof. New York: W.W. Norton, 358 pp.
Scientific evidence demonstrates that some people are less persuaded by misinformation if they have been previously warned that some is coming their way, if they know the telltale markers of misinformation, and if they have contrary information to stand up against it. Such factors make up the so-called inoculation effect.
The size and significance of the claimed inoculation are not reported. This is not a scientific book and only vague and questionable summaries are given. Graphs are presented without scaled axes, categorical data are discussed as if they were continuous, and differences of less than one point on survey results are cited as important results. Such hand-waving makes all the author’s claims less credible.
Footnotes refer you to “Chapter Notes” in the back of the book, which in turn refer you to a bibliography, not a proper list of references. Of the many hundreds of entries in the bibliography, about half are articles in newspapers, magazines, popular books, and online websites. Of the peer-reviewed journals cited, most are general survey articles rather than reports of scientific results. Maybe that’s all a popular book needs to provide, but I would have appreciated more direct, solid, and accessible references for a book claiming to discriminate information from misinformation.
Throughout the text, terms are not defined, making the discussions and conclusions infuriatingly vague. The first third of the book emphasizes that “the brain” decides, judges, determines, is vulnerable, and is persuaded, as if it were a little homunculus in the head. “The person” is out of the picture, helpless and not responsible because “the brain” does all the thinking and believing. It’s utter nonsense, and I had little idea about what the first third of the book was trying to say.
True information versus misinformation are not defined, a rather serious omission for a book on this topic. If I say I have 2 pennies in my pocket right now, is that true or false? Information or misinformation? Ha! You don’t know, do you? Actually I don’t have any pennies. See how your brain is vulnerable to misinformation? But that’s not how these terms are properly used.
The author could have put a little effort into defining what he means by true facts, genuine information, misinformation. Likewise, what is a conspiracy? He gives lots of examples, such as that NASA faked the moon landing, but are there no legitimate conspiracy theories? The CIA really did conspire to overthrow governments in Iran and Chile. Those were conspiracy theories until they were proved true. Did Jeffrey Epstein really hang himself? In the absence of adequate information, conspiratorial explanations flourish. It doesn’t make them false just because they’re conspiracies. What’s missing is information.
I was not persuaded by the book’s main thesis that persuasion by misinformation can be meaningfully blocked with prior facts. Nevertheless, I did get some insights out of the book. One is that the people who control the sources of political and social information, mainly the government and large for-profit entities, don’t give out enough of it to thwart misinformation campaigns. It’s hard to argue anymore that tobacco does not cause cancer or that seat belts don’t save lives. But when the information is hoarded, misinformation flourishes.
I also realized that with the internet and social media “the electorate” that Thomas Jefferson was worried about has fractionated into thousands of micro-communities. That is a serious obstacle to the flow of information, and it facilitates misinformation.
The book also made me worry about the state of general education. People who think they can catch the flu from a flu vaccine don’t actually know what a vaccine is. The degree of ignorance about the basic facts of physical, social, and political life is frightening.
I think this book is well-intentioned but it came across to me as an exercise in persuasion using more than a little misinformation.
van der Linden, Sander (2023). Foolproof. New York: W.W. Norton, 358 pp.
July 8, 2023
Alright. This book needs to be better than it is. It's not bad, I'd give it 3.5 stars, but there are some things that I wish were better. First, the author/professor does a great job teaching the subject of misinformation, but he does a very poor job teaching being 'Foolproof' or building immunity to misinformation. That's a pretty big bummer since the whole book is supposed to be on countering it. I get that he has approached it like he approached his games, put you in the shoes of the person spreading misinformation and as you learn their tactics you will be able to spot them. But it was a little too academic review and not enough practical application. Second, like I said with it being an academic review, the language and presentation were not quite as approachable as you would hope. He does a classic professor thing where he introduces a jargon term, defines it in an easy-to-understand way, and then uses the jargon term from then on. That's not actually following the rule to not use jargon. That's just trying to equip people into their jargon world. I get that works for people that have encyclopedic brains with great comprehension and recall, but for someone semi-casually reading this it really doesn't work, especially when the term is still being used pages and chapters later. Third, the first half is overly hair-splitting with a DOZEN 'antigens' and the second half misses the point of the book. I was ecstatic to hear free programs help vaccinate psychological misinformation. But, that's all that was presented. So it kind of feels like it was a pseudo-academic review of his own efforts to fight misinformation, rather than actually teaching you how to fight misinformation. This is a little unfair since his whole strategy is to actually practice it and do it through the game, but I feel like there has got to be more than just playing games to practice in real life. Lastly, the final chapter on speaking to friends and neighbors is incredibly theoretical and not at all pragmatic. Nobody interacts with people the way he suggests; great ideas, but no way to practically use without getting called some things or getting cut out of people's lives.
December 23, 2023
A book on how to counteract misinformation. I liked the first part of the book where he discusses what happens to people when exposed to misinformation or conspiracy theories. He also describes what are the most common aspects of conspiracy theories which was useful to get an overview of despite the annoying acronym "CONSPIRE". Also the discussion of echo chambers and filter bubbles was solid although perhaps not so much new to me. The nice thing is that he is an active researcher in the field so the experimental evidence is leading in his writing. I was a bit less convinced on the second part which focuses heavily on the approach that he pioneered where they inoculate people against misinformation through games. I do think they did impressive work there but I'm not entirely convinced that it will be a future proof way to counter misinformation with sufficient reach. Not that I have any alternatives in mind, I guess I'm just pessimistic. But generally that a focus on identifying and restricting bad actors that aim to influence is probably an important ingredient that he doesn't discuss at all. I was also a bit less fond of the writing, hard to pin down but it has a kind of tone that pop science books sometimes have that I feel doesn't entirely respect the reader's intellect. That's a minor gripe though and probably more of a sensitivity on my part. Overall a worthwhile read, especially the first half.
October 4, 2025
Referenced:
Fake war in Ukraine clips from video games mislead millions on social media - Arma 3
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...
https://www.getbadnews.com/en
The Genesis Triangle
How the brain normally interprets reality?
In optical illusions the raw data conflicts with your prior expectations, and the brain chooses the most likely scenario, even if it’s wrong.
On fake videos:
Seeing something fake (AI video, deepfake, etc.)
The photons coming off your screen are real. They’re as real as photons from a real person in front of you.
Your visual cortex processes them the same way it would a real scene.
Unless there are obvious “tells” (strange motion, unnatural lighting), your brain will treat the image as a real event because it’s consistent with your prior experiences of video footage.
So in the moment, your brain’s best guess = “this is a real video”.
Knowing something was fake after the fact doesn’t completely erase the brain’s earlier interpretation because of how memory, perception, and belief are wired.
Motivated brain vs. unmotivated brain
STUDIES
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
State of the Art Review: Poverty and the Developing Brain
Macroeconomic income inequality, brain structure and function, and mental health
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4422...
The impact of poverty on the development of brain networks
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
Illusory truth effect
are people motivated by accuracy or not?
Rapper B.o.B is a flat earther...
The “lizard conspiracy” (often called the reptilian conspiracy theory), a modern myth popularized mainly by the British writer David Icke starting in the 1990s.
Belief perseverance or, more specifically, the backfire effect.
Personality and misinformation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
https://www.tiltstudio.co/solutions/c...
Fake war in Ukraine clips from video games mislead millions on social media - Arma 3
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...
https://www.getbadnews.com/en
The Genesis Triangle
How the brain normally interprets reality?
In optical illusions the raw data conflicts with your prior expectations, and the brain chooses the most likely scenario, even if it’s wrong.
On fake videos:
Seeing something fake (AI video, deepfake, etc.)
The photons coming off your screen are real. They’re as real as photons from a real person in front of you.
Your visual cortex processes them the same way it would a real scene.
Unless there are obvious “tells” (strange motion, unnatural lighting), your brain will treat the image as a real event because it’s consistent with your prior experiences of video footage.
So in the moment, your brain’s best guess = “this is a real video”.
Knowing something was fake after the fact doesn’t completely erase the brain’s earlier interpretation because of how memory, perception, and belief are wired.
Motivated brain vs. unmotivated brain
STUDIES
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
State of the Art Review: Poverty and the Developing Brain
Macroeconomic income inequality, brain structure and function, and mental health
https://www.nature.com/articles/s4422...
The impact of poverty on the development of brain networks
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
Illusory truth effect
are people motivated by accuracy or not?
Rapper B.o.B is a flat earther...
The “lizard conspiracy” (often called the reptilian conspiracy theory), a modern myth popularized mainly by the British writer David Icke starting in the 1990s.
Belief perseverance or, more specifically, the backfire effect.
Personality and misinformation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
https://www.tiltstudio.co/solutions/c...
June 16, 2023
Three stars because:
1. This read more like a dissertation or thesis rather than a book.
2. There were a lot of punctuation errors that drove me insane. Missing periods, for one. (And this is also to say it's written in UK English, which follows different rules for punctuation than US English.)
It appears, after reading this book, coincidentally alongside a book about the rise of QAnon, that the absolute worst thing Facebook did was open to "everyone." Remember when it was just college students? With no ads? (No pictures even? Anyone?) This wouldn't be such a prevalent issue if we were still in that era. Social media—Facebook and Twitter, namely—have contributed enormously to spreading misinformation and "fake news" with their algorithms prioritizing what it thinks users want to see. Thus, perpetuating the spread and appearance of these types of stories. Thus creating groups like QAnon. Thus recruiting for ISIS. On and on. In other words—danger.
I think the author's solution to this problem should unfortunately be taught to kids in schools at this point—that is, give them a "vaccine" and "booster" every so often of fake news so they know how to spot it. Once you know how to recognize it, your brain knows how to "fight" it, just like a vaccine does for the body.
1. This read more like a dissertation or thesis rather than a book.
2. There were a lot of punctuation errors that drove me insane. Missing periods, for one. (And this is also to say it's written in UK English, which follows different rules for punctuation than US English.)
It appears, after reading this book, coincidentally alongside a book about the rise of QAnon, that the absolute worst thing Facebook did was open to "everyone." Remember when it was just college students? With no ads? (No pictures even? Anyone?) This wouldn't be such a prevalent issue if we were still in that era. Social media—Facebook and Twitter, namely—have contributed enormously to spreading misinformation and "fake news" with their algorithms prioritizing what it thinks users want to see. Thus, perpetuating the spread and appearance of these types of stories. Thus creating groups like QAnon. Thus recruiting for ISIS. On and on. In other words—danger.
I think the author's solution to this problem should unfortunately be taught to kids in schools at this point—that is, give them a "vaccine" and "booster" every so often of fake news so they know how to spot it. Once you know how to recognize it, your brain knows how to "fight" it, just like a vaccine does for the body.
April 27, 2023
Misinformation can have serious consequences, such as undermining public trust in institutions, causing harm to individuals, and even contributing to social and political unrest.
But engaging the people with respectful and constructive dialogue can help to build trust and foster a more informed and nuanced understanding of complex issues.
In such regards, this book teaches us how we all have biases that can influence our perception of information. And as such, being aware of our own biases can help us evaluate information more objectively.
Stopping the spread of misinformation is a critical issue that requires a multifaceted approach, and the author has very precisely and correctly narrated it down to the every single detail.
As has been rightly stated by the author, what was considered flawed reasoning over 2,000 years ago, in Aristotle’s time, is still considered flawed reasoning today.
And unless we fundamentally change the rules of logic or what counts as media manipulation, the techniques that have identified in this book are going to remain deceptive for a long time to come.
In every of the page, it is quite evident that a lot of research and study has been done to present the facts and as such, it was truly an eye opening read. I am going to give this FIVE STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
But engaging the people with respectful and constructive dialogue can help to build trust and foster a more informed and nuanced understanding of complex issues.
In such regards, this book teaches us how we all have biases that can influence our perception of information. And as such, being aware of our own biases can help us evaluate information more objectively.
Stopping the spread of misinformation is a critical issue that requires a multifaceted approach, and the author has very precisely and correctly narrated it down to the every single detail.
As has been rightly stated by the author, what was considered flawed reasoning over 2,000 years ago, in Aristotle’s time, is still considered flawed reasoning today.
And unless we fundamentally change the rules of logic or what counts as media manipulation, the techniques that have identified in this book are going to remain deceptive for a long time to come.
In every of the page, it is quite evident that a lot of research and study has been done to present the facts and as such, it was truly an eye opening read. I am going to give this FIVE STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
June 15, 2023
"Foolproof : Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity" by Sander van der Linden is an eye-opening exploration of the pervasive issue of misinformation in our digital age. With the rise of social media and the ease of information sharing, falsehoods and conspiracy theories spread like wildfire, distorting our beliefs and influencing our actions. Author delves into the psychology behind misinformation, unraveling its mechanisms and providing invaluable tools to immunize ourselves against its allure.
The author's expertise shines through as he dissects the complex landscape of fake news, uncovering the reasons behind its rapid dissemination. Drawing from compelling examples and scientific research, Author empowers readers with eleven crucial antidotes to combat the spread of misinformation effectively.
In an era where accuracy is often overshadowed by sensationalism, Foolproof serves as a beacon of rationality. Author's writing style is accessible and engaging, ensuring that even the most casual readers can grasp the intricacies of the subject. This book is an essential resource for anyone seeking to navigate the treacherous waters of our information-driven society and emerge with a clearer understanding of truth and falsehoods.
The author's expertise shines through as he dissects the complex landscape of fake news, uncovering the reasons behind its rapid dissemination. Drawing from compelling examples and scientific research, Author empowers readers with eleven crucial antidotes to combat the spread of misinformation effectively.
In an era where accuracy is often overshadowed by sensationalism, Foolproof serves as a beacon of rationality. Author's writing style is accessible and engaging, ensuring that even the most casual readers can grasp the intricacies of the subject. This book is an essential resource for anyone seeking to navigate the treacherous waters of our information-driven society and emerge with a clearer understanding of truth and falsehoods.
May 30, 2023
The book isn't just hard science -- it's well-written, engaging, and fun. I read most of it in a weekend. It includes enough of his personality and personal commentary to make it engaging. For example, he talks about his bizarre interactions with Alexander Kogan (behind Cambridge Analytica), his discussions with WhatsApp (who was concerned about misinformation on their platform), and has many more fascinating stories. I liked the "inside" perspective from someone who's worked with scientists, governments, and tech companies on really trying to fix the misinformation problem. Many other pop science books I read are just written by journalists and all hype -- whereas this has a lot of nuance, depth, and careful consideration of the science, while also being written in an accessible way.
August 5, 2025
An informative book about misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and how they can all proliferate on social media. The author seems to be a little more optimistic than I am about people's desire for true information, willingness to listen to others, and community focus. Unfortunately some points already felt out of date, based on how quickly AI and deepfakes have progressed. In general, it's a great reminder that whether intentional or not, there is a lot of misinformation on social media, and that we ought to be on the lookout to understand who is providing the information we are consuming, as well as what their motivations and credentials are, and how they are using language to manipulate how we feel about the what they are sharing.
August 24, 2025
An interesting read, though I didn’t feel I learned that much that was new. Much of it boils down to the fairly obvious point that people tend to accept information consistent with their prior beliefs — no great revelation there. That said, some of the statistics he cites are worrying: for example, while only around 8% of people in the UK think climate change is a hoax, one in five Americans do.
I thought his use of the R factor from virus replication to illustrate how misinformation spreads was a smart and effective analogy.
Some one-star reviews complain that he focuses too much on right-wing conspiracy theories and not enough on left-wing ones. Yes, I wonder why that might be…
Overall, worthwhile but not especially eye-opening.
I thought his use of the R factor from virus replication to illustrate how misinformation spreads was a smart and effective analogy.
Some one-star reviews complain that he focuses too much on right-wing conspiracy theories and not enough on left-wing ones. Yes, I wonder why that might be…
Overall, worthwhile but not especially eye-opening.
March 3, 2024
Incredible piece of work! Strongly recommend for science communicators, especially those for the polarized topics (climate change, vaccines, GMOs, etc.). But it's also a much-needed read for anyone who wants to understand the techniques that bad actors use to manipulate public opinion, including how they are used on social media. Knowledge is power, and understanding the techniques helps us see through them and not fall victim to misinformation/disinformation campaigns. I took my time because I took copious notes, but I could have read it quickly, as it is a very readable book. It's also thoroughly documented and sourced.
September 23, 2025
Un libro muy interesante sobre desinformación, que tiende en exceso al alarmismo y que, de hecho, a lo largo del texto matiza (o se ve obligado a hacerlo) muchas de las afirmaciones más sensacionalistas que hace en la introducción. De hecho acaba teniendo muchos puntos en común con el de Mercier.
De especial interés el final, donde explica el desarrollo de investigaciones para ayudar a vacunar a las personas contra la desinformación.
Recomendable, aunque con matices.
De especial interés el final, donde explica el desarrollo de investigaciones para ayudar a vacunar a las personas contra la desinformación.
Recomendable, aunque con matices.
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