You can’t watch a YouTube video, scroll through Twitter or even check up on the news without coming across an online troll these days, and it’s become a serious cause for concern.
One game company is hoping to educate social media users into recognising and dismissing false information through a new in-browser game entitled Troll Factory.

The ingenious game is a trolling simulation title created by a team from Yle News Lab at the Finnish broadcasting company Yle [via FastCompany], and it wants you to act like a troll to recognise bad form when using the internet.
Over on the Troll Factory website the game’s official description reads: “It’s your first week at the new job at Troll Factory. Your task is to grow your influence on social media — by whatever means necessary. How many people can you reel in?”

Explaining a little more about the project and the values of its developers, Yle writes: “Troll Factory shows you first-hand how information operations work on social media. The goal of the game is to illustrate how fake news, emotive content and bot armies are utilized to affect moods, opinions and decision-making.”
You’ll find yourself spreading fear and worry through the use of internet memes to get the most people invested in your scaremongering as possible with the aim of scoring yourself more shares and followers. Interestingly, Troll Factory “uses examples of authentic social media content” to help educate its players along the way.

“Data shows that anti-immigration material is circulating widely in Europe, North America and Asia,” says the development team. “Continuing information operations around immigration using fake news, internet memes and the polarization of public discourse are systematic and organized.”
You can try out the game for yourself right here.
Featured Image Credit: Pixabay