On Capturing the Narrative: Social Media Manipulation Wargaming for Cyberliteracy
2026-07-27 • Computers and Society
Computers and SocietyHuman-Computer Interaction
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied misinformation and created a competition called Capture the Narrative, where university students built AI bots to influence a fake election on a custom social media platform. Over four weeks, many teams posted millions of messages, mostly focusing on volume rather than subtle influence. Surveys showed that playing the game did not make students better at spotting bots, which was unexpected based on theory. The authors suggest improvements like adding defensive teams to make the learning experience more effective.
misinformationGenerative AIdigital literacylarge language modelsnon-player charactersinoculation theorysocial media platformsAI botseducational competition
Authors
Alexandra Vassar, Rahat Masood, Hammond Pearce
Abstract
Misinformation is deeply embedded in online discourse, with nearly one in five posts during global events generated by bots that amplify false content. In recent years, the use of Generative AI has further lowered the barrier to producing convincing misinformation, yet most digital literacy education still relies on static checklists and single-player inoculation games built for an earlier media landscape. This paper describes how we addressed this educational gap through Capture the Narrative, a four-week multi-university competition in which student teams build LLM-powered bots to influence a simulated election. We report on our custom social-media platform, the competition environment and design of its 4,000 AI-driven Non-Player Character (NPC) citizens, and what running Capture the Narrative at scale actually involved. In our first iteration, 108 teams from 18 Australian universities produced 7,068,206 player-bot posts, approximately 60% of all platform content. We surveyed 256 students before and 83 after the competition to understand their perceptions of misinformation and the game itself and found that students did not become more confident at spotting bots, contrary to what inoculation theory predicts. Because engagement was rewarded, most teams prioritised high-volume posting over nuanced influence, mirroring real-world platform dynamics. We close with recommendations for educators considering similar interventions, and propose future improvements, such as including a blue-team defensive phase.