Conspiracy theories and Misinformation: Part 1

In a world where we are surrounded by lots of information at once, there's bound to be misinformation somewhere. How can we tell them apart?

Images from Clipart Library and PNGWing

As most people are trying to stay sane while staying put, many others have resulted in spreading conspiracy theories to misinform or just cause fear and panic in the population. Most of us think that we're quite sharp in detecting conspiracy theories when we see one but of recent, these theories have been evolving becoming more subtle involving values that people hold dearly like family, honesty, religion, and so on. They come off as sincere warnings but are actually meant to push people even farther away from the truth. Some even have so-called scientific evidence or backing. For instance, at the beginning of the pandemic, many coronavirus theories started to pop up like some absurd cures for the virus, 5G network being really responsible for the coronavirus, or black people could not get infected by the virus.

All of these theories spread like wildfire because of some major recipes of conspiracy theories that were well mixed to create these stories.

The major ingredient is usually misinformation which is just false information. Conspiracy theories become theories when so much misinformation has been combined with "bad" psychology (as I like to call it) that convinces people to believe them. A simple example of misinformation is saying that the earth is flat. We all know that the earth is not flat but when I go and dig up some research paper that studied two ships sinking at the edge of Australia and combine that with some psychology about why we call it down under or end of the world, some people may start to believe that the earth may be flat even after it has been proven not so. And so a conspiracy theory is born, Misinformation + bad psychology. Most of us can debunk conspiracy theories at the basic level of misinformation because it just does not make sense, but when bad psychology or sentiments are added with a pinch of "research" that nobody can access or from an unknown scientist, then our minds are blurred and we start to buy into the lies. So the plan is to strip every piece of information into its basic components. If it invokes a lot of emotions and presents little knowledge or blurry scientific back-up, we should definitely be wary.

Also, tracing the source of the information is a good place to start from, there are usually three ways this can turn out. One, the source is untraceable or it leads to a dead end. There is no reasonable source, the information just popped up from nowhere. Most people who have done a lot of research or are proud of their credible work will always want their names to be associated with it. That's one of the major reasons we have laws and theories with names attached to them like Archimedes Principle or Newton's laws. It's a fact. Scientists, researchers, and philosophers want to slap their names on stuff. So do any of us. If I discovered something, I would not name it Kelisa's law or Alexa's principle. It would want it named Kami's Theory or something with my name, so when I don't want to be associated with it, you should be suspicious of the credibility of that work.

The second outcome is finding the name of a credible organized to attached whether. Now, this is where it gets easy-ish. For example, if you saw something on Facebook that says WHO (a credible organization) announces bleach can cure COVID 19, you should head to the WHO website to confirm, don't use the link provided by the chat or message, actually Google WHO and check the website, or even send an email to them if you have time. One main thing that misinformers like to do is to put names of credible organizations on their message to make it sound credible but if you can't find that same exact info on the official website of such organizations, then you should be suspicious.

Outcome 3 is finding an organization that is quite unpopular. Type the name of the organization on Google, and check the news tab and images. Is there an official website? Are they on the news? Do they have credible and respectable members and partners? If not, then you should be suspicious. I know it can be quite frustrating to fact-check everything we hear. Can't we just believe? Besides, it's hard to be fact-checking up and down. But you have to remind yourself, do you want the truth or just some convenient information? Can you give a TED talk using that information? Can you make a life-risking decision using that information? If your answer is No, you should not build any conclusions using such info, not to talk of sharing it with others. In this day and age, the cost of misinformation can be deadly even leading to death. Just think of those people who are protesting social distance based on misinformation and are getting killed by the virus or the thousands of black people that have died in the US. Some of them under the influence they could not be infected by the virus.

Conclusion? One, we live in the age of information. The internet was designed to get people connected to information. Unfortunately, it cannot perfectly detect if such information is false so we have to consider that when we consume info. Two, conspiracy theories are everywhere and are usually very subtle or believable, sometimes even people like celebrities or highly respected people have quoted or promoted some sort of conspiracy theory knowingly or unknowingly, so anyone can fall victim. Three, anytime we choose to believe something, we should question our belief systems. Do we believe because we saw it on Instagram, it was propagated by a famous person or because it is actually the truth? The truth is a very powerful tool and that is why we value honesty in our society. But when we start to underrate the importance of truth or its percentage in what we consume, it will unconsciously affect what we believe, making us insensitive to dishonesty.

Remember "honesty is the best policy" but the patience to seek it is truly the virtue.

Dear reader, thank you for reading Conspiracy theories and Misinformation Part 1. I hope you are doing well during this quarantine and are safe. Make sure to stick around for Part 2. Or if you are bored, Read Crisis Management 2 for ideas of things you can do during this isolation period.

Have a lovely day!

Kamikun.