Google reached large parts of the population in Germany in the summer with a video campaign to combat misinformation and manipulation attempts on the net.
According to the Google subsidiary Jigsaw, 21.9 million users on YouTube alone watched the three educational videos, which were played out as advertisements, in June and July - corresponding to 58% of the 18 to 54-year-old population in Germany.
The videos were also seen on Facebook and Instagram from the rival Meta group, where they reached 20.6 million people in the same age group, or 54% of them.
One of the videos showed the manipulation technique of scaremongering: Here, for example, lurid words such as "dramatic" or "extreme" were used in headlines to evoke emotional reactions.
A second video showed how texts or images are intentionally shown in a different context or incompletely, known as "decontextualization."
The third video dealt with diversion tactics, such as a sudden change of subject or the question "But what about...?"
The main goal of the campaign was to enable larger parts of the population in Germany to recognize manipulation techniques in social networks.
According to a survey on Youtube, those who had seen the videos were on average 5.4% better at recognizing manipulation techniques than the control group who had not seen the videos.
Beth Goldberg, head of research at Jigsaw, said this may not sound like a lot.
However, she said, "this is actually enormous by social science standards, because if you think about it, we're teaching someone something during a one-minute ad when people are often distracted and inattentive."
