Imagine you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed, feeling a familiar knot in your stomach. You’ve been putting off deciding whether to vaccinate your baby. There’s so much conflicting advice, and every post seems to pull you in another direction. Then two messages appear. The first one is clear and official: “Protect the community and your kids by booking their vaccinations today.” It sounds reasonable, but it also feels a little distant, like a public service announcement. The second message is softer, more curious: “Do you know all the effects of childhood vaccinations on your babies?” It feels less like a command and more like a genuine question, the kind a friend might ask over coffee. Both messages link to the exact same reliable vaccination information. But in recent research, the second message was about 52% more likely to be clicked on. The information behind both links was identical. The only difference was the wording. And that’s the heart of the problem we’re all facing: in a world drowning in information, how do we get trustworthy facts to the people who need them most? The answer may have less to do with the facts themselves, and far more with how we talk about them.
Let’s be honest about what we mean when we talk about misinformation. Misinformation is false information shared without the intention to cause harm. Someone might pass along a scary article about vaccine side effects because they genuinely believe it’s true and want to protect others. That’s different from disinformation, which is deliberately crafted and shared to deceive. But false claims are only part of the story. Our research into Australian Facebook communities showed that these conversations are often deeply intertwined with personal worries, especially when it comes to protecting children. A parent who is hesitant about vaccines isn’t necessarily irrational or uneducated. They’re often someone who loves their child fiercely and wants to make the right call. In these online spaces, people find comfort and camaraderie, but they also get trapped in a narrow way of seeing things. We found that far-right users often shared articles from moderate news sources, but they chose only a very specific range of topics that fit their existing worldview. This means even mostly accurate news stories could reinforce their perspectives. Over time, these dynamics can pull people away from mainstream information and even from their loved ones. Our research describes people gradually withdrawing from family and friends as they became more involved in fringe communities. This isn’t just an intellectual problem; it tears at relationships.
Governments, researchers, and fact-checking organizations have worked hard to fight back. They produce factual resources, investigate misleading claims, and provide evidence. Fact-checking can help, but it only works if people trust the source and truly understand the explanation. Social media platforms have also tried to take action. They have removed false content, made misleading posts less visible, and added warning labels. Some of these measures helped in certain ways. For example, research on Meta’s pandemic response found that many Facebook pages that were regulated by Meta declined in performance, though some continued to grow. But users always find a way around restrictions. They use coded language, subtle euphemisms, and links to less moderated platforms. The cat-and-mouse game never really ends. And in 2025, Meta stopped using independent fact-checkers in the United States entirely, replacing them with Community Notes, where users themselves write and rate explanations that appear alongside posts. All of these approaches have some impact, but they leave a fundamental question unanswered: how do you get reliable information in front of someone who isn’t looking for it? You can publish all the fact-checked articles you want, but if your message never reaches the people who are hesitant, or if it speaks in a language that feels foreign to them, it simply disappears into the noise.
To understand this problem better, we spent months observing Australian Facebook communities that shared anti-vaccination and far-right narratives. What struck us most was not the hostility, but the warmth. Alongside the misinformation, these communities offered companionship. Messages sounded like a friend who was genuinely worried about their child, not like a stranger trying to argue. People felt heard there. So we used these observations to create three fictional audience profiles, or personas, to guide our experiments. First, Jennifer: a young mother worried about vaccination, anxious to protect her baby, and looking for reassurance. Second, Patrick: a retired teacher who loved his grandchildren and feared for their future in a world he saw as increasingly dangerous. Third, Aaron: a young man who cared deeply about fitness, technology, and staying in control of his own body. These personas helped us choose audiences for Facebook advertisements and craft messages that used familiar styles of speech. For Jennifer, we used personal, caring language, like a friend sharing worries about her children. For Patrick, we used an authoritative, explanatory tone, the kind of measured reasoning he respected. For Aaron, we used a motivational tone, encouraging him to take charge and check the facts for himself. Then we compared these messages with neutral versions of the same advertisements. Each pair used the same image and linked to the same government or government-affiliated resource. The sponsor and advertising settings were identical. Only the wording changed.
The results were striking. In 11 out of the 12 comparisons, people were more likely to click on an ad when its wording reflected the language used in the communities we studied. Let that sink in. Over and over again, the same information packaged in a different style attracted more attention. For ads about school education, those with familiar language received clicks 6% of the time, while the same ads with neutral wording only received clicks 1.1% of the time. That means the language inspired by the communities we were trying to reach was about five times more likely to be clicked on. For vaccination ads, the difference was smaller but still meaningful. Ads with familiar language were clicked on 0.98% of the time, compared to 0.65% for neutral wording. In other words, a slight change in phrasing made the same reliable information roughly 50% more likely to be seen. But there are important caveats. These findings do not show that we changed anyone’s mind. We don’t know whether people actually read the linked pages or simply clicked and moved on. Facebook’s delivery system also influenced who saw each advertisement, and we changed several features of the wording at once, so we can’t say exactly which element made the difference. It might have been the tone, the length, the emotional appeal, or the way the message acknowledged a concern. But even with those limitations, the pattern is clear and hopeful: how we say something matters enormously.
So what can we do with this knowledge right now? The takeaway is not about manipulating people or tricking them into reading something. It’s about communicating in a way that feels human. For public health teams and anyone trying to share reliable information, this approach could be a game-changer. Instead of writing one official statement and posting it everywhere, we can listen to how people actually describe their concerns, then test different ways of presenting the same evidence. This doesn’t mean impersonating community members or amplifying fear to grab attention. It simply means adopting language that speaks directly to the questions and worries of the people you’re trying to reach. For a vaccination campaign, that could mean trying messages that acknowledge parents’ real concerns, like: “You want to keep your little one safe. Wondering what vaccinations will mean for your baby?” That message doesn’t hide the facts. It doesn’t force anyone into a corner. It starts in a place of empathy and opens the door to a deeper conversation. A follow-up study could then examine whether readers not only clicked through, but also understood the information and felt more confident in making a decision. That would tell us whether this kind of tailored communication can do more than attract attention, whether it can actually build trust. In an age where trust feels scarce, that is exactly the kind of research we need. The fight against misinformation isn’t just about debunking false claims. It’s about recognizing that behind every hesitant parent, every worried grandparent, every skeptical young person, there is a real human being looking for answers. If we want to reach them, we have to speak their language, not just our own.