educational entertainment
寓教于乐
Games are a weapon in the war on disinformation
游戏助力打击虚假信息
They are effective at teaching players how to spot falsehoods online
玩家网上辨真伪，游戏教学效果显著
The mayor of your city has announced a strange new public project: a lavish park especially for cats. It seems like a waste of money so, with the help of some activists you have met online, you campaign against it on social media. You start with rousing posts—“Breaking News: Outrageous! City prioritises elitist pets over our kids!”—and funny memes. You soon move on to doctoring images to make it look like the mayor is part of “an ultra-secret cat-worshipping cult”. You galvanise your followers to take violent action.
你所在城市的市长最近宣布了一项奇怪的公共工程：为猫猫们建造一座豪华公园。你看不惯这种肆意挥霍，在上网结识的一些志同道合者的帮助下，你在社交媒体上对这类行为发起了抵制活动。首先，你发布几条煽风点火的帖子：“号外！市政府认为少数精英的宠物比我们的孩子更重要！”，再配以恶搞的表情图。接着你伪造了一些图片，让人觉得市长貌似加入了“某个极为神秘的拜猫邪教组织”。你鼓动你的粉丝奋起反之。
In “Cat Park” players learn to become disinformation warriors. The free 15-minute online game explores the dark art of spreading lies online; players get points for the passion of their posts and shareability of their memes. It is good fun, with a witty script and futuristic cyberpunk style. It is also an educational tool, funded by the Global Engagement Centre (GEC), a branch of the US State Department which aims to “recognise, understand, expose and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts”.
在《猫咪公园》这款游戏中，玩家可以学着变成打击虚假信息的战士。这款免费的网络游戏15分钟即可通关，它探究了网络传谣的神秘手段。如果玩家的发文足够激情澎湃，表情图让人忍不住转发，那么他们就可以得分。这款游戏非常好玩，文案风趣幽默，充满着未来主义的赛博朋克风。同时，这款游戏也是一个教育工具，由美国国务院下属机构全球参与中心（Global Engagement Center, GEC）予以资助，旨在“识别、理解、揭露和对抗其他国家或非国家组织的舆论宣传和假信息传播”。
Games such as “Cat Park” are an ingenious response to a widespread problem. Fake news and conspiracy theories are in rich supply; demand for them is high in polarised countries across the world. Many governments are mulling policies to try to limit their spread, since internet users often struggle to discern legitimate sources from nefarious ones. Last year a study by Ofcom, a British regulator, found that 30% of the country's adults hardly consider the truthfulness of information they read online. About 6% give no thought to the veracity of stories. Around a quarter failed to spot fake social-media accounts.
像《猫咪公园》等同类游戏的出现巧妙应对了一个普遍的问题：假新闻和阴谋论泛滥，在全世界那些两极分化严重的国家里更是大行其道。多国政府正酝酿各式政策，试图限制假新闻和阴谋论的传播，这是因为互联网用户很难区分合法信息源和恶意信息源。去年，英国监管机构Ofcom进行的一项研究发现，该国30%的成年人在网络上获取信息时几乎不考虑其真实性，大约6%的人不考虑新闻报道的真实性，更有四分之一左右辨别不了社交媒体的假账户。
Tilt Studio, the Dutch developer behind “Cat Park”, has also worked with the British government, the European Commission and nato to create games that “help tackle online manipulation head-on”. In 2020 it collaborated with the gec on “Harmony Square”, in which players seek to destabilise an idyllic neighbourhood by using falsehoods to foment disunity. During the pandemic, it released “Go Viral!”, a five-minute game that gets players to scrutinise misleading information about covid-19.
荷兰Tilt Studio公司是《猫咪公园》的开发商，也与英国政府、欧盟委员会以及北约展开合作，共同开发“有助于积极应对网络操纵”的游戏。2020年，该公司联手全球参与中心推出了《和谐广场》，玩家在游戏中利用虚假信息煽动不和，扰乱社区的美好生活。疫情期间，这家公司还发布了一款通关只需五分钟的游戏《大爆发》，其中包含关于新冠病毒的误导性信息，需要玩家仔细判断真伪。
“Rather than simply waiting for lies to spread, and then debunking them with a fact-check, we can leverage games like ‘Cat Park’ to practically educate ourselves about common disinformation techniques,” says Davor Devcic of gec. Aimed primarily at citizens in the West, the games are based on the idea of “active inoculation”: just as individuals build up resistance to a disease after a vaccine, after playing “Cat Park” or “Harmony Square” they are more wary of internet skulduggery. A study by the University of Cambridge found that players of “Harmony Square” were better at spotting dodgy content and less likely to share it. The effect was consistent across right-wing and left-wing players.
“与其坐等谎言传播之后再去核查事实、揭露真相，不如利用《猫咪公园》这样的游戏来亲自实践，了解虚假信息传播的常见套路。”全球参与中心的戴夫·德威克如是说道。这些游戏主要面向西方民众，是基于“主动免疫”理念设计的，就像通过接种疫苗增强对疾病的抵抗力一样，玩过《猫咪公园》或是《和谐广场》后，人们会更加警惕互联网欺诈行为。剑桥大学的一项研究发现，《和谐广场》能让玩家变得更善于识别可疑信息，并不大可能转发这类内容，对所有玩家都有效果，无论他们是右翼还是左翼分子。
The Canadian government, meanwhile, helped fund “Lizards and Lies”, a board game about information warfare. It takes the form of a traditional map-based war-game, which you play as one of four characters: an “edgelord”, “conspiracy theorist”, “platform moderator” or “digital literacy educator”. (You are either a “spreader” or a “stopper” of lies.) Cards and tokens help you win over enclaves of supporters. Points are scored for each social-media network you control. It pays to focus on areas of the map that are winnable: as with their real-life counterparts, certain online networks are more amenable to wild conspiracism than others.
与此同时，加拿大政府还资助开发了一款名为《蜥蜴与谎言》的桌面游戏。这是一款打信息战的战争游戏，采用了传统的地图走棋形式。玩家能从“刀锋领主”、“阴谋论者”、“平台调解人”和“数字素养教员”这四类角色中任选其一。（玩家要么是谎言的“传播者”，要么是“阻止者”。）玩家还能通过卡片和代币赢得各片区的支持。每控制一个社交媒体网络，玩家就会得分。因此，玩的时候可以重点关注地图上的“可得分之地”，因为很划得来——正如在现实世界，某些在线网络（即游戏里的片区）中的阴谋论会比其他地方来得更猖獗。
Scott DeJong, the designer, says he was partly inspired by the QAnon conspiracy theory, which itself makes use of gaming techniques to acquire and motivate followers. “Disinformation and conspiracy-theory processes are often like puzzles. They draw people in by seeming to ask questions, while really directing the target towards a specific answer,” he says. The originator of the theory, Q, posts “drops”, or cryptic clues, “that the community works together to interpret and resolve”.
该游戏的设计师斯格特·德容表示，他在一定程度上受到了QAnon阴谋论的启发，该理论本身利用游戏技巧来获取和激励关注者。他说：“虚假信息和阴谋论的过程通常就像谜题。它们通过看似提问的形式来吸引人们的注意，实际上却将目标引向特定的答案。”该理论的创始人Q发布了神秘线索，又称作“面包屑”，这些线索需要“社区共同破译和解决”。
Commercial game developers are also building stories around this theme. “Not For Broadcast”, a propaganda simulator, is set in an unnamed European country in the 1980s after a populist party has been elected. Players operate as the director of a 24-hour tv-news channel and must select news clips to build a narrative. They can decide whether or not to amplify the government's message, but sensational content tends to get the most eyeballs.
商业游戏开发商也在围绕这个主题构建故事。《不予播出》是一款宣传模拟游戏，故事背景设定在20世纪80年代一个民粹主义政党当政的匿名欧洲国家。玩家担任一位24小时电视新闻频道的总监，必须选择新闻片段来构建叙事。他们可以决定是否夸大政府的信息，但耸人听闻的内容往往最吸引眼球。
The medium makes all the difference, says Alex Nichiporchik, the boss of tinyBuild, the makers of “Not For Broadcast”. “Video games are the only media where you can look at the story and say: ‘I did this.’ We put players in the shoes of powerful newspeople and ask them to make morally questionable choices.” A player might censor an interviewee, for example, or leave out inconvenient facts. “The most important thing for us is that the game is fun, but players come away understanding how news media manipulate cuts and edits tofit an agenda,” Mr Nichiporchik says.
亚历克斯·尼奇波奇克是《不予播出》的制作人，也是tinyBuild的老板，他说媒介起到了至关重要的作用：“电子游戏是唯一一种你可以看到故事并说：‘我做到了’的媒介。我们让玩家站在有权势的新闻人物的立场上，要求他们做出存在道德争议的选择。”例如，玩家可能会审查受访者，也可能会忽略不合时宜的事实。他表示：“对我们来说，最重要的是游戏的趣味性，但玩家在离开时会明白新闻媒体是如何操纵剪辑和编辑来实现某种特定目标的。”
Games, whether physical or digital, “are great tools for asking questions”, adds Mr DeJong, and can reach people who are turned off by more straightforward educational methods. “There is a heavy focus on being critical about social media and a reward for demonstrating an understanding of how disinformation works.” Players can justify their hours of entertainment as an instruction in civic responsibility.
德容补充道，无论是实体游戏还是数字游戏“都是提出问题的好工具”，游戏可以吸引到那些讨厌更直接教育方法的人。“游戏中会重点关注对社交媒体的批评，并对理解虚假信息的运作模式进行奖励。”玩家可以打着接受公民责任教育的旗号，来为他们的娱乐时间正名。
