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I got a surprise when I opened Twitter the other morning — and no, it wasn't because of the latest tweet from new owner Elon Musk.
At the top of my feed was a colorful graphic announcing, "It takes time to count all of the votes." It gave a few more details about why (projected winners in some contests might not be announced right away) and a warning: "This means you could encounter unconfirmed claims that a candidate has won their race." Below were two buttons to "find out more" and "learn how voting by mail is safe and secure."
I immediately recognized what I was seeing: a "prebunk".
Twitter is just one of several companies, government agencies and civic groups experimenting with this strategy, which rests on a simple idea: show people a little bit about misleading information, so they're better equipped to recognize and resist it if they encounter it in the future. Think of it like a vaccine against false claims — in fact, it stems from a field of social psychology research called inoculation theory.
The research on just how prebunks work and how long they last is still in the early innings — and everyone I spoke with about the strategy emphasized it's only one part of the bigger fight to protect elections, and democracy at large, from the corrosive impact of deliberate falsehoods.
But companies...
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