The Challenge

To provide the capability to utilise social media in cyber space to identify individual and groups with malintent and affect their behaviour to our favour. Intended as part of a comprehensive campaign, this project is toward developing the capability of using social media in winning the hearts and minds of those with grievances against the UK, particularly those with ideologies that may lead to violent extremism and terrorist activities.

YouTube

Our Approach

Changing attitudes and entrenched behaviours is difficult, but this is our expertise. We understand that tackling such issues requires far more than making a playful experience or developing an information resource.

For this platform in particular, we are focusing on answering the following questions:

  • How do we design for better engagement, shaping and influencing behaviour in cyberspace?
  • How can we use immersive games as a channel for our messages?
  • Can we use existing social media/games for information gathering and analysis?

What we did

The Social Influence Platform is a  multiplayer social game designed for engaging and influencing individuals by drawing content of a certain ideology from YouTube, news articles, websites, and blog posts and bringing a variety of people with strong political or religious views together to discuss and debate.

Users have the ability to rate and comment on content, which in turn rewards them with points, enabling them to earn titles and trophies.

As users advance through the platform, they are placed within a group based on the type of content they agree with. A leader board on the Global View page displays the group with the greatest number of supporters, which in turn acts as a motivator for users to debate, defend and promote their ideals.

The benefits

  • Users have the option to play anonymously, meaning they don’t feel threatened when promoting their ideology and may be more expressive and detailed in their posts.
  • Provides an online platform for users of different beliefs to debate and discuss, using YouTube videos as a basis for their arguments.