(2020-02-03) Threatcast2020 Our New Brainstorming Game To Explore Disinformation In The2020 Election

Threatcast 2020: Our New Brainstorming Game To Explore Disinformation In The 2020 Election. As you may recall, a few years back, I helped design and run a large group election simulation game called “Machine Learning President.” The game explored what odd or surprising coalitions might form around a 2020 election, as well as the impact of both money and technology on the races.

Last year, Renee DiResta, at the Mozilla Fellowship in Media, Misinformation, and Trust, commissioned myself and Randy Lubin (with whom we worked on Machine Learning President, our CIA card game, and a variety of other game-related projects) to create a group brainstorming exercise to explore ways in which disinformation might be used in the 2020 election, called Threatcast 2020.

Throughout the game, players are repeatedly asked to come up with disinformation strategies

it has generated some really amazing insights and ideas for both how disinformation might be used — and how different actors might help to limit its impact

Nathaniel Gleicher, the head of security policy at Facebook, whose entire role right now is focused on figuring out how to prevent Facebook from being abused for mis- and disinformation, recently tweeted that this kind of exercise is one of the “best ways to think like, and get ahead of the bad guys.”