Deepfake detection with and without content warnings

The rapid advancement of ‘deepfake' video technology—which uses deep learning artificial intelligence algorithms to create fake videos that look real—has given urgency to the question of how policymakers and technology companies should moderate inauthentic content. We conduct an experiment to measure people's alertness to and ability to detect a high-quality deepfake among a set of videos. First, we find that in a natural setting with no content warnings, individuals who are exposed to a deepfake video of neutral content are no more likely to detect anything out of the ordinary (32.9%) compared to a control group who viewed only authentic videos (34.1%). Second, we find that when individuals are given a warning that at least one video in a set of five is a deepfake, only 21.6% of respondents correctly identify the deepfake as the only inauthentic video, while the remainder erroneously select at least one genuine video as a deepfake

Prevalence, predictors and reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: results of a global online survey

Vaccine hesitancy has the potential to cripple efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy makers need to be informed about the scale, nature and drivers of this problem, both domestically and globally, so that effective interventions can be designed. To this end, we conducted a statistical analysis of data from the CANDOUR survey (n = 15,536), which was carried out in 13 countries representing approximately half of the global population. Both pooled and country-level ordered regression models were estimated to identify predictors of vaccine hesitancy and reasons for not getting vaccinated. We found high levels of hesitancy, particularly in high-income countries. Factors driving moderate hesitancy differed from those driving extreme hesitancy. A lack of trust in health care providers was consistently the underlying driver of more extreme hesitancy. Predictors of moderate hesitancy varied across countries, though being younger and female was typically associated with greater hesitancy. While political ideology played a role in vaccine hesitancy in some countries, this effect was often moderated by income level, particularly in the US. Overall, the results suggest that different interventions such as mass-media campaigns and monetary incentives may be needed to target the moderately versus extremely hesitant. The lack of trust in health care professionals that drives extreme hesitancy may reflect deep societal mistrust in science and institutions and be challenging to overcome

Access to healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional analysis of income and user-access across 16 economically diverse countries

Background: National health systems have different strengths and resilience levels. During the COVID-19 pandemic, resources often had to be reallocated and this impacted the availability of healthcare services in many countries. To date there have been few quantitative contemporary studies of inequalities in access to healthcare within and between countries. In this study, we aim to compare inequality within and between 16 economically diverse countries. Methods: Online surveys were conducted on 22 150 adults in 16 countries across six continents in 2022. Quota sampling and post-stratification weighting was used to obtain an age, gender, geographically, and educationally representative sample. The study assesses the differences in challenges in access to healthcare during the pandemic (for GP, surgical/clinical and digital GP services) using country-specific expanded health-needs-adjusted Erreygers’ concentration indices and compares these values between countries using a Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Results: Results show wide variation in income-related challenges in access within countries for different types of care. For example, Erreygers’ concentration index for digital services in Colombia exhibited highly regressive inequality at 0·17, compared to Japan with an index of -0·15. Inequalities between countries were also evident, with Spearman rank coefficients of -0·69 and -0·65 (p-values of 0·003 and 0·006) for digital and surgical access, indicating that lower income countries had greater inequality in healthcare access challenges. Conclusion: During the pandemic, inequalities in challenges to accessing healthcare were greatest in low and middle-income countries. Digital technologies offer a reasonable means to address some of this inequality if adequate support is provided and accessible digital infrastructure exists

Cash versus lottery video messages: online COVID-19 vaccine incentives experiment

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments offered financial incentives to increase vaccine uptake. We evaluate the impact on COVID-19 vaccine uptake of cash equivalents versus being entered into lotteries. We randomly assign 1628 unvaccinated US participants into one of three 45-second informational videos promoting vaccination with messages about (a) health benefits of COVID-19 vaccines (control), (b) being entered into lotteries or (c) receiving cash equivalent vouchers. After seeing the control health information video, 16% of individuals wanted information on COVID-19 vaccination. This compared with 14% of those assigned to the lottery video (odds ratio of 0.82 relative to control: 95% credible interval, 0.58–1.17) and 22% of those assigned to the cash voucher video (odds ratio of 1.53 relative to control: 95% credible interval, 1.11–2.11). These results support greater use of cash vouchers to promote information seeking about COVID-19 vaccination and do not support the use of lottery incentives

Crisis perceptions and economic voting among the rich and the poor: the United Kingdom and Germany

This chapter leverages extensive survey data collected during the 2008-2010 period in order to understand whether individuals, from different economic circumstances and who might have been differentially affected by the Recession, respond similarly or differently to these economic shocks. The chapter describes how rich and poor voters responded to the economic crisis of 2008–2010 drawing on data from two panel studies conducted during the 2009 German Federal election and the 2010 U.K. Parliamentary election

How to detect heterogeneity in conjoint experiments

Conjoint experiments are fast becoming one of the dominant experimental methods within the social sciences. Despite recent efforts to model heterogeneity within this type of experiment, the relationship between the conjoint design and lower-level causal estimands is underdeveloped. In this paper, we clarify how conjoint heterogeneity can be construed as a set of nested, causal parameters that correspond to the levels of the conjoint design. We then use this framework to propose a new estimation strategy, using machine learning, that better allows researchers to evaluate treatment effect heterogeneity. We also provide novel tools for classifying and analysing heterogeneity post-estimation using partitioning algorithms. Replicating two conjoint experiments, we demonstrate our theoretical argument, and show how this method helps estimate and detect substantive patterns of heterogeneity. To accompany this paper, we provide new a R package, cjbart, that allows researchers to model heterogeneity in their experimental conjoint data

Nudgen für die Rentenentscheidung im Vereinigten Königreich – Implikationen für die Privatisierung der Rentenpolitik

Over the last decades, politics in the UK has shifted away its focus from government-managed pensions to privatized pension solutions and services. In turn, ?nancial literacy has become a critical issue for consumers, politicians and regulation agencies. The precise experimental examination of website regulation used to compare investment and pension products, as well as the design and presentation of product information through nudging become new ?elds of activity for regulatory agencies. We have undertaken a number of experimental projects on consumer decision making on pension product markets for U.K. authorities. These experiments used informational nudges. A key finding that we have gained from these studies is that personalized nudges tailored to individual demographic factors effectively encourage comparison of pension products. However, we were not able to determine a clear influence on the pension decision by the individual financial literacy