Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories

Written by Aiman Khan 

Thumbnail Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

There may have been times in your childhood when you were drawn into some bizarre theories about the world. Maybe it happened just as you were growing out of your old beliefs in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, and you needed something to fill the void left behind. You may have had your own theories about the Bermuda Triangle and what could lay beyond the icy waters of the North Atlantic. Or, maybe you believed that Avril Lavigne had, in fact, passed away in secrecy and was replaced by a clone. Or you might have spent hours with your friends decoding Rihanna’s music videos to uncover the secret messages of the Illuminati (or maybe that was just me).

As we grow up, most of us trade in our supernatural notions of the world for the sobering realities of the day. After all, isn’t that what being an adult is all about? Unfortunately, the human proclivity for the fantastic says otherwise. History is full of instances of mass hysteria based on superstition, hearsay or the occult.  While you might want to sideline present-day conspiracy theories to men in tinfoil hats, the truth is we are all capable of being persuaded by pseudoscience of one form or another.

Otherness, Fear Mongering and Scapegoats

One of the hallmark tenets of conspiracy theories is the Us-vs.-Them narrative. Propagated for centuries in politics and the wider society in general, this is one of the oldest Machiavellian tactics that we still, unfortunately, fall for. Social creatures like ourselves have a natural propensity to form into groups and create identities based on similar social categories. “Othering” relies on differentiation based on any number of factors, such as physical characteristics, class structures, and ideologies that do not conform to your group. This group can be as broad-ranging and transparent as gender, race, and religion, to more nuanced subsets of culture such as proponents of specific socio-economic and political belief-systems (like communism or capitalism, for example). A common example that we see every day is when people stop associating with other people who have different political alignments than them.

Throughout history, we can pinpoint many instances of this happening to the extreme. The Witch trials of Europe in the 1580s relied on hearsay and hysteria to justify the persecution of around 50,000 people who were burned at the stake. In the 1940s, crippled by international policies in the aftermath of World War I, Germany needed a scapegoat to blame for its economic issues. The historical anti-Semitism that ran rampant throughout most of Europe fueled Adolf Hitler’s creation of the “Master Race Theory” that led to the subsequent genocide of millions of Jews. More recently, misinformation about the Iraq regime’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and potential ties to Al-Qaeda led to the destruction of an entire nation. This feat would have been impossible to achieve were it not backed by public opinion in the west, which in turn was swayed by a rigorous smear campaign. This is not to mention the thousands of wars waged for ideological differences throughout all of human history.

The common theme throughout all these events is that they show us how effective alienating and polarizing rhetoric can be in changing the opinions of large groups of people. This pattern is aided largely by misinformation.

Why we believe in the absurd: Pareidolia, Machiavellianism and Mistrust

The science behind why we are drawn to conspiracy theories is still in its early stages. Research has indicated that there are links between certain personality traits and these beliefs –  Machiavellian and psychopathic personalities have been shown to be more likely to believe in conspiratorial arguments.  

On a macro scale, the gradual erosion of trust in the government might have played a role in the popularity of alternative theories. Declassified information on secret unethical initiatives (such as the CIA’s Project MK-Ultra or the U.S.’s supposed operation to plant national terrorist attacks to drum up support to oust Fidel Castro) has fanned the flames of conspiracy theories around the world. So, it’s not surprising that people come up with their own theories about what the truth is. For example, the UFO cover-up claims in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 turned out to indeed be a governmental cover-up. But rather than hiding alien hardware, the U.S. government was covering up for a confidential espionage program related to Soviet nuclear testing. Even though the Roswell UFO theory has been thoroughly debunked, it continues to persist as a conspiracy theory today. 

Environmental factors may also have an impact on what you are willing to believe. This may be why we’ve seen a sudden increase in conspiracy theories during quarantine. When we are left dissatisfied by large-scale events whose explanations seem mundane or unclear, we are more likely to believe in alternative grandiose theories so we can reach some form of cognitive closure. This is also the case when we are faced with conditions that are out of our control that foster anxiety and powerlessness. This may be one reason why your perfectly sensible uncle has suddenly started posting anti-COVID content on Facebook. So, try to go easy on him- he’s dealing with the stresses of our new reality in his own way.

It has also been suggested that people who are more prone to finding patterns in unrelated events are more likely to believe in speculative theories. This form of pattern recognition is known as pareidolia, and it’s actually quite common..This is why there are so many sightings of religious imagery in ordinary things, like finding the face of Christ on a side of a tortilla or the Virgin Mary on grilled cheese (sold on eBay for $28,000!). Interestingly, pareidolia is enhanced when we feel powerless. 

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku argues that we may have even evolved to carry certain genes for belief in hearsay, superstition, and conspiracies that might have helped us survive. But, as he aptly puts it, there is no gene for scientific and critical thinking. It’s something we have to continually push ourselves to achieve. 

What You Can Do

 Research, Research, Research

Like all new mediums of information, the internet is a fertile breeding ground of absurd and uncontested theories that catch on like wildfire. Because there are still relatively few safeguards in place, it’s difficult to immediately verify whether a piece of information is reliable or not, especially on social media. As a result, it’s important not to take anything you see on the web at face value. Verify your information so you can reach the original or source document, and ask yourself the following questions: when, where, who and why? When was this information published (how old is the data), where was it published, who published it and why (what was the motivation behind it?). You wouldn’t seriously consider health advice from a 1950s pamphlet, nor would you accept the findings of studies on obesity and diet if they were sponsored by the Coca-Cola company (unfortunately, of which there are many).

Photo by the blowup on Unsplash

Don’t fall prey to emotional pleas or scapegoating

According to David Rand, an MIT Professor studying misinformation, "There's evidence that more emotionally evocative content makes people less discerning. In particular, when people rely on intuition and emotion they are more likely to believe false claims. Statements, for example, that are scary make people less inclined to stop and think about it."

Information that is true and valid typically tends to rely on facts, whereas information that is lacking in factual evidence will attempt to appeal to your emotions. Emotional appeals have been shown to be extremely persuasive on a psychological level, and are routinely used in marketing, politics, and even atheist debates. Don’t allow your emotions to monopolize a debate; more importantly, don’t let others do so either.

Many of the conspiracy theories surrounding COVID-19 accuse the Chinese government of creating the virus in a lab in an act of bio-warfare. Perspectives like this have paved the way for political parties across Europe and the US to justify stringent and oppressive anti-immigration and ultra-nationalist policies. The idea of a patented virus is not only xenophobic, but offers us a simple scapegoat that in reality will do nothing to contain the propagation of COVID.

Fostering Scientific Skepticism

We may have mostly passed the age where conspiracy theories led to mass hysteria and civic unrest. But we are now entering into a new world of misinformation where facts can blur into fiction. Deepfakes are increasingly becoming more and more advanced, and to the undiscerning eye might even be persuasive. 

We are now entering into a new world of advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence which promise us technological leaps beyond our dreams. But the underbelly of such innovation is the high potential to deceive and manipulate vulnerable people using such tools. With social media use skyrocketing, the resulting free-flow of information means that not everything is carefully vetted, and we are increasingly subject to unproven claims.

Scientific skepticism affords us a perspective that exalts empirical evidence - our saving grace in a world that inundated with fake news, politicized content and misinformation. We need to learn to question everything, from our own deep-held biases to the pop culture fads that we accept as norms.  

Many conspiracies have turned out to be true: Tobacco companies did hide the evidence of cancer-causing chemicals in cigarettes for many years and the Canadian government did employ a gay detection machine to remove gay men from civil service. But far too many of the popular conspiracies today about vaccines, COVID, the shape of the Earth, and reptilians controlling the government lack any real evidence to justify their claims.

If you’re prone to go down the rabbit hole of fascinating and alternative theories about the world, you likely score high on the trait of Openness to Experience. That’s great news! Your intellectual curiosity can be marshalled into researching events that do not always make the headlines but are happening nonetheless, like the persecution of the Uighur Muslims in China or the growing power of Big Data from social media and internet surveillance.

If you’ve ever believed vaccines cause autism or that NASA faked the moon landing, don’t be too hard on yourself. Just like the Lochness Monster, Bigfoot and other folklore from around the world, appreciate your old views for the gripping mystery and fascination they provided you. After all, even the brilliant Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was fooled into believing in fairies.