When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, strange conspiracy theories took global social media by storm. The disease is caused by radio frequency emissions from the 5G mobile phone tower. Wild theory is spreading across social media platforms. The belief in this conspiracy was so enthusiastic that the media reported more than 100 incidents of arson and vandalism against 5G (and 4G) infrastructure, as well as many instances of abusive or threatening behavior against telecommunications workers.
Why do such strange events happen? A recent review article published in the Communications Journal on May 19 showed that conspiracy theories and other widespread false beliefs arise from complex interactions, including cognitive limitations of people, social impacts on groups, and the broadening of global scales of ideas across social networks.
This fatal combination of processes at different scales (individuals, groups, globals) led to the online problems we see today. Their complexity makes the resulting social tendencies extremely difficult to combat.
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Prepared for poor thinking and strange group behavior
The underlying cause of poor thinking lies in our evolution. Because our ability to deal with complex information is limited, our brains take shortcuts such as confirmation bias. This tends to notice things that match existing beliefs and ignore those that do not. For example, you quickly forget to wait in a fast queue, but remember how annoying the slow queue is and ask, “Why am I always on slow queue?”
Another symptom of inability to deal with complexity is the tendency to see malicious intentions in complex and unexplained events. This trend has planted seeds for many injustice, from witch hunts to conspiracy theories. In reality, there is no conscious prompt and unexpected events and actions often emerge through networks of interaction.
When people gather in groups, strange behavior often appears. Like trends, false beliefs can spread from person to person. Were you afraid to ask questions in class? I think everyone else understands, and you don’t want to look stupid, but sometimes no one understands it. Known as pluralistic ignorance, this problem lies at the root of many social issues. For example, a kind person is usually a passive bystander in the presence of others and often fails to help the victim.
Related: Why do people believe in conspiracy theory?
A similar problem is GroupThink. Everyone stops expressing their opinions, as they want to protect the reputation of their group, even if they don’t agree. GroupThink was associated with many famous disasters, including the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Another issue with potentially dire consequences is polarization, where groups are divided into two camps with mutually opposing and incompatible perspectives, increasingly separate over time.
Pluralistic ignorance, group thinking, and polarization are all known to be “urgent” effects that occur naturally under appropriate conditions. This self-organizing behavior in groups is often ununderstandable and often results from other causes. It is also why groups, the media, and the public often get caught up in surprise when groups are suddenly promoting strange agendas.
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The behaviors of the above groups appear spontaneously when individual cognitive failures interact and lead to dysfunctional group behavior. They are driven by a deep social drive for the safety of the group. This promotes errors in the way we think it is, leading people to take a “safe” route and chase the crowd.
Rapid spread of extremist views
The problem today is that some voices have been whispered in the past can ignite widespread mayhem. Imagine living in a traditional village hundreds of years ago. It’s a small world. Ideas spread through word of mouth from person to person. When visitors move from village to village, they move out very slowly. Even today, we still have many types of “villages” (family, neighbors, colleagues, friends), and ideas spread as we move between groups.
With the advent of mass media, some people have given them a much wider reach than ever before. They supported propaganda while amplifying extreme views. On the Internet, individual views can be strengthened by large support groups as groups of people are connected regardless of geographical distance.
Like-minded communities emerge through social media. This includes the rapid spread of extremist views and conspiracy theories. Connecting individuals in extreme views via social media allows very large groups to share malignant views. Strange behaviours like the 5G Savotage above can often surface very quickly.
Truth cannot compete with lies
Why are deceptive messages spreading so often? They can be designed to seduce an audience by leveraging known cognitive biases. This technique is widely used in politically polarized media, social media and biased fact checking. Use confirmation bias and motivational cognition. True messages cannot simply compete with customized fakes.
Another well-known cause is the spreading behavior of social networks, especially when connected by a very fast and wide range of digital networks. Research has found that deceptive messages usually spread in a way similar to the models used by epidemiologists in medicine. Social media “influencers” are often “super spreaders” of false and misleading content.
The above actions suggest that by treating the authorities like an epidemic, it could curb the spread of deceptive messages. These are usually defeated by taking three steps. It suppresses sources, limits spreads, and boosts immunity in exposed populations. If the pathogen is digital, this suggests blocking or dismissing platform creators and spreading malignant messages, filtering malignant content on media platforms, and refusing to educate or train viewers.
This is easier than that.
I won’t go outside
Creators and spreaders leverage the free speech law and move between platforms and media types. On the other hand, audiences may be keen to believe in malicious nonsense and tend to forget what they are being taught. Unfortunately, there is a wide variety in ways to spread malicious messages.
The world is now facing the prospect of a permanent “arms race” of tactics and technology between propaganda and nonsense providers and those trying to speak the truth.
Communities that choose not to play in this “arms race” will be flooded with falsehood and suffer from an increase in social inconsistency as consensus on issues of community concern become confused at the point of paralysis. Communities that choose to stand up to malignant actors should invest their time and resources to play in the “arms race” and try to prevent or manage the effects of unnecessary damage.
There is no simple Panacea solution. Expecting to find one is a hopeful way of thinking.
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