Ever wondered what it’s like to run a fake news empire, discrediting fact-checkers while causing national scandals and creating conspiracies out of half-truths?

Well, now you can — but remember, it’s just a computer game. The web browser game called “Bad News” takes you through the bizarre experience of becoming a conspiracy theorist. From impersonating public figures to trolling, it opens a window into the world of online disinformation. It’s supposed to act like an information “vaccine,” inoculating players against fake news by giving them a weak dose of disinformation methods.

The game was created by researchers at Cambridge University and DROG, a Dutch anti-disinformation platform. DROG founder Ruurd Oosterwoud has made disinformation his specialist subject since 2014, when he realized our “instinctive responses” to fact-check and regulate fake news were simply not doing enough to combat the crisis. 

“Those measures are all reactive and take up all your time,” said Oosterwoud. “They don’t stop the problem. I wanted people to understand at an individual level how easy it is to create realistic disinformation by building a disinformation generator.”