How conspiracy theories spread
Conspiracy theories have always existed but they seem to be much more prevalent and mainstream today than in any other period. One of the factors that has led to the increasing prevalence of conspiracy theories and other dangerous beliefs is social media...here’s my case.
#1-Conspiracy theories are a problem. This one is probably an obvious one, especially as we have seen the violence on January 6 connected to conspiracy theories related to QAnon and electoral fraud. According to this survey in December less than half of respondents identified the core statement of belief of QAnon as false. 39% agreed that a “deep state” was working against Donald Trump. In July, 25% believed that the COVID-19 pandemic was planned. Even before 2020 the number of people who believed in conspiracy theories was relatively high. QAnon predates 2020 and in 2019 almost half of respondents believed in some sort of JFK conspiracy, 29% in the “deep state” working against Trump and 23% believed 9/11 was an inside job. And while Republicans are currently the most likely to believe in relevant conspiracies, the political science research has historically not shown a significant difference between Republican and Democratic belief in conspiracy theories. The worst consequence of these beliefs are the violence we saw on January 6th and in 2016 associated with “Pizzagate”. If almost a third of the country believes in some type of conspiracy theory this makes political discourse and policy making difficult. Significant groups of people are operating in alternate realities with different sets of “facts”, which is not a good situation for a healthy democracy.
#2-Social science cascading or tipping point theories help explain how conspiracy theories spread. There has been a lot of good work on why people believe in conspiracy theories and how they spread in a number of different disciplines. One of the theories that has helped me understand how they spread the most is a theory developed not for conspiracy theories but to answer the question of “why revolutions seem to always surprise us”. Timur Kuran, an economics and political science professor, outlines this theory in his article, “Now out of Never”. In a nutshell, the theory argues that people have private beliefs they are often afraid to share in public, however if they believe enough other people believe the same thing they will be more likely to share their beliefs publicly. Within the context of revolutions the idea is that many people are unhappy with the existing government but are afraid to say so because they don’t think there are many others who feel like they do. Some event, such as a protest, or other action, such as an underground publication, will demonstrate that there are more people who share that belief, which leads to additional people becoming public about their beliefs and so on. This is why these kinds of theories are referred to as cascading theories. Kuran’s article refers specifically to revolutions but these types of theories are often used to explain economic behavior and a number of other things as well. What does any of this have to do with conspiracy theories? Using this theory we can argue that conspiracy theories are more likely to spread as people make their privately held belief public. The percentage of people who privately believe in conspiracy theories was (and probably still is) fairly large. As people begin to publicly share this belief, the people who privately believe in conspiracy theories will be more likely to share these beliefs publicly. They are more likely to do so because they feel safer and more justified in their belief.
#3-Social media has advanced the spread of conspiracy theories by allowing people to feel safer to share their belief in conspiracy theories. Social media allows us all to broadcast our beliefs and opinions, in good and bad ways. Not only does it allow individuals but it also allows fake accounts to share and spread information. Leading up to the 2016 election, one study found more than 10 million tweets sharing misinformation and conspiracy theories. Another study looking at misinformation about coronavirus found that nearly half of Twitter accounts spreading the misinformation were likely bots. Twitter recently suspended around 70,000 QAnon accounts, along with prominent political figures such as Michael Flynn and President Trump. In the subsequent week misinformation about the election decreased by 73%. Social media magnifies opinions, often making it appear that more people actually believe something than they actually do. For people who may be unsure about a specific conspiracy theory seeing people they know or people they trust, such as the President, share information about those conspiracy theories may be the tipping point that allows them to share their private belief publicly, which in turn may be the tipping point for someone else. The presence of fake accounts and bots, along with the social media echo chamber where you mostly see people who think like you, intensifies this phenomenon. In the past someone may have believed a conspiracy theory but did not see people around them believe so they let the theory go or kept it to themselves.
#4-One step to addressing this problem is to suspend or ban accounts that share such information. Twitter, Facebook and other social media companies took this step after the violence that occurred on January 6th. Removing the real accounts and fake accounts/bots that spread this information will reduce the “tipping point” and make people less likely to share conspiracy theory beliefs. I am sympathetic to the arguments that this could set a bad precedent resulting in social media companies suspending more accounts. The tipping point theory also helps explain the explosion of the #MeToo movement and if early revelations were treated as “conspiracy theories” the movement could have been stopped before it began. However, unless you are a free speech absolutist it is difficult to argue that people should be allowed to spread the craziness of QAnon or the most extreme electoral conspiracy theories about Dominion, Venezuela, CCP, etc. In addition, I would rather have private companies enforcing their own terms of service than the government engage in censoring of speech. And while there is concern from some Trump supporters that social media is targeting them, there is little evidence for this. On January 14th 8 of the 10 top-performing links on Facebook were associated with pro-Trump accounts. Fairly extreme accounts as well, such as Dan Bongino and Dinesh D’Souza. On January 13th the number was 8 out of 10. On January 12th the number was, you guessed it, 8 out of 10. Pro-Trump accounts seem to be doing pretty well.
Based on the evidence it seems clear that social media has played a large role in the spread of conspiracy theories over the last decade, and especially in the last year. How to address this problem is a difficult issue but one start is for social media accounts to be more proactive in preventing fake accounts and others that spread conspiracy theories the most. For people who already believe in conspiracy theories it is even more difficult to address. This short video by CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan and a recent article in the New York Times illustrate that it is difficult to counter entrenched conspiracy beliefs with fact-checking and logic. As David French wrote in July, addressing conspiracy theories includes being firm in the truth but also lovingly engaging with our neighbors and holding them in charitable esteem.
Speaking of holding neighbors in charitable esteem, this article about the reconciliation between Shirley Chisolm and George Wallace is a good read and especially relevant on MLK day.
Campaign Ad
The following campaign ad is one of the more notorious political ads of all time, often called out for its racist message.
Thoughtful and well done as usual.