Conspiracy theories and their insidious ability to undermine democracy
Why are conspiracy theories so popular?
The rise of the Internet and social media has brought about the ability for people to communicate and interact across the world. But whilst it has brought many freedoms, some users have taken advantage of this to push forward their own agendas and beliefs, sometimes for nefarious ends. There is, also, a darker side to social media, as it ‘carries the insidious ability to distort, to mislead and to produce hatred and instability’.
There is a risk that with greater freedom and reach more dangerous narratives can spread, ones that challenge mainstream perspectives and widely-accepted ‘truths’, hereby poisoning the information environment and posing a threat to democracy.
Beneath the wholesome and jovial content on most people’s feeds, lies a bed of conspiracies and disinformation which is proving increasingly accessible for anyone to consume, knowingly or unknowingly. This content has the power to sway opinion, providing appealing answers for ‘coincidences’ surrounding big, and often complicated, events.
To begin this blog, it is important to highlight that there is a significant difference between disinformation and misinformation, and this is becoming more and more apparent on social media timelines. In 2019, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee acknowledged the need for a more nuanced examination of the false content circulating online. They distinguished between two terms. First, ‘disinformation’ which describes intentionally false and misleading information designed to deceive and distort people’s perceptions of reality for political, personal or financial gain; and second, ‘misinformation’ which is false information that is spread inadvertently and without malicious intent.
Conspiracy theories are central to the growing prominence of disinformation on online platforms, with the stereotype of a middle-aged man living in his parent's basement being a distant truth. Professor Chris French says:
With so many conspiracy theories out there, ranging from the belief that George Bush orchestrated the plot for the Twin Towers attack, to the bizarre belief that Beyonce, Paul McCartney and Avril Lavigne were all replaced by clones, it is too easy to be drawn into these narratives, if simply for entertainment.
As engagement with print news dwindles, content on social media platforms gains a wider audience. However, this has come with many challenges. For example, the like and commenting features on these platforms provide a sort of stamp of approval from users’ social circles only further tricking users into believing false information, even if it is misleading or blatantly false. Conspiracy theories, now, have the perfect breeding ground to entrap the minds of so many people.
The Political Implications
In the US, both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections were plagued with disinformation. This proved a serious challenge to democracy as it relies upon an informed and knowledgeable citizenry when they cast their ballot. Often, citizens were confronted with lies and misleading representations of the candidates. As stated by Sternisko, Cichocka and Van Bavel:
‘Conspiracy theory beliefs are linked to political alienation and cynicism…and demotivate people to engage in normal, democratic practices like voting.’
Sternisko, Cichocka and Van Bavel suggest two motivational factors explaining why people are attracted to conspiracy theories: (1) their unique content that can take on different narratives that appeal to individual’s own experiences, identity and predispositions and (2) their qualities, referring to its ability to ‘explain’ events and the fact they offer counternarrative to mainstream accounts that may not provide sufficient, clear answers.
Social media provides platforms for theorists to congregate and spread destructive beliefs. The circulation of unsubstantial claims poses a threat to democratic systems, due to the speed it takes to reach a large audience. In fact, according to Vosoughi, Roy and Aral ‘false information on Twitter travels faster and reaches large audiences than accurate information’.
Conspiracy Theories and the US Election
In the run-up to the 2016 election, one conspiracy gained widespread attention from citizens and the mainstream media: the infamous belief of ‘Pizzagate’. Thousands of people were convinced by the idea that Democratic Party members were involved in a secret paedophilia ring, being run out of a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C., Comet Ping Pong.
The story exploded in the days prior to the election, with alt-right activists, conservative journalists and other believers of the theory expressing their opinion for the prosecution of Clinton. Mike Wendling reported that ‘nearly a million messages were sent last month using the term ‘Pizzagate’, the size of its audience is especially worrying given that this was just a month before the election.
In November, WikiLeaks shared emails from Clinton’s campaign chairman. In these emails, the name Alefantis was frequently mentioned. For some, this became ‘evidence’ of his role in a story that soon spiralled out of control.
4Chan, a message board known for valuing ‘free speech’ and allowing extreme content and trollish behaviour, became inundated with speculation around Alefantis. And just days before the election, a Reddit user posted a document of ‘evidence’ to support this negative framing, much to the delight of Trump supporters and the alt-right.
‘Pizzagate’ was debunked as there was no evidence that a sex-trafficking ring was being run out of the pizzeria’s basement (in fact, there wasn’t even have a basement!). Nonetheless, it is likely that many believers of ‘Pizzagate’ dismissed this evidence and have continued to support this kind of pro-Trump conspiracy thinking.
This is corroborated by Swami, who claims that:
“There is some evidence that presenting critical information can reduce belief in a theory, but only among people who have not made up their minds yet”
“For the people who have already made up their minds, it probably won’t change anything.”
‘If Pizzagate were an hit indie movie, QAnon is the big budget sequel that co-opts all the characters, storylines, and themes that made the original successful.’
In the aftermath of ‘Pizzagate’, the conspiracy theory QAnon grew in prominence and has continued to disrupt people’s knowledge acquisition since, including in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.
QAnon is a farfetched theory, postulating that Trump is in a war against elites, celebrities and members of the Democratic Party, who are members of a secret cabal where they worship Satan and run an undercover child sex-trafficking ring, extracting the blood of the children to drink.
In March 2020, a Pew Research Centre survey found three-quarters of Americans had not heard of QAnon. Yet, by September, this had dropped to about half of Americans, worryingly indicating a heightened awareness of its ideas before the election. In fact, around 9% expressed they’d heard “a lot” about the movement.
Whilst 9% of all Americans may not seem like a large proportion of the population, that constitutes hundreds of thousands of people believing information which could have a significant bearing on their political views and, ultimately, their perceptions of reality.
QAnon first started like ‘Pizzagate’ on the message board 4chan in 2017. A user called ‘Q’ would write cryptic posts on the site known as ‘Q Drops’ often littered with pro-Trump themes and outlandish statements. ‘Q’ claimed to have US security approval known as ‘Q Clearance’, that being the reason he had hold of such sensitive information. Since then users continue in trying to solve the clues, putting together the pieces of the jigsaw that ‘Q’ provided for them.
How social media facilitates the spread
On social media, Trump acts as an opinion leader and has mass influence over his audience and beyond. Parau, Lemnaru and Potolea defined opinion leaders as:
‘Individuals who exert a significant amount of influence within their network and who can affect the opinions of connected individuals…’
‘Opinion leaders play an important role within the two-step flow of communication model, where information is transferred from the mass media to the public in two steps: first, from the media to opinion leaders and then from opinion leaders to the larger audience.’
On Twitter, Trump has frequently retweeted the opinions of QAnon supporters. Given that these retweets appear on the timeline of all his followers, he has been spreading QAnon messages to the masses. Users who idolise him consequently become vulnerable to conspiracy ideas, and may express them as their own opinions as stated by the ‘two-step flow theory’.
This illustrates how easily disinformation can spread, assisted by the functions of social media sites. Social media functions have created digital echo-chambers for like-minded individuals to discuss and share opinions, generating a prime environment for the dissemination of disinformation.
Social Scientists like Munmun De Choudhury have studied homophily in social networks.
Homophily is ‘a tendency in social groups for similar people to be connected together (after all ‘birds of a feather flock together)’
He goes on to highlight how this significantly influences the perspectives and values we get from social media because we continue to hear opinions that align with our predispositions and interact with like-minded people.
Mike Wendling claimed that QAnon supporters ‘drive hashtags and co-ordinate abuse of perceived enemies — the politicians, celebrities and journalists who they believe are covering up for paedophiles’. These hashtags provide a base for these users to meet, where comments, likes and retweets are deposited on tweets of disinformation. As these discussions start trending, they are likely to gain attention from bigger media outlets. Alarmingly, this could then lead to them being displayed to a larger audience.
For example, at Trump rallies, ‘Q’ signs and T-shirts frequently appeared in the background, accompanied by cries of ‘fake news’. These public displays may spark curiosity among people unfamiliar with ‘Q’, leaving them wanting to find out more and delve deeper into its meaning. These sightings are making QAnon more mainstream, leading to coverage from news outlets. This increased visibility of the movement and its ideas are likely to increase the number of believers as curiosity increases and more people board the conspiracy theory train.
With Trump actively retweeting QAnon conspiracies and not disregarding his ‘involvement’, we are now living through a post-truth era. Vittorio Bufacchi refers to post-truth as ‘the belief that truth is no longer essential, that truth has become obsolete’. A concerning state of affairs in democracies dependent on well-informed citizens capable of effectively casting their ballots and holding governments to account.
All the conflicting information online has created an environment where audiences struggle to decipher what is true and false, leading some to give up entirely on this quest for truth, accepting what they read at face value. For Bufacchi, ‘objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion, where theoretical frameworks necessary to make sense of certain events are scorned, and where scientific truth is delegitimised.’ This blatant disregard of the truth is very dangerous and can undermine democracy as a whole.
The consequences of disinformation?
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee report continued to say that ‘in this environment, people are able to accept and give credence to information that reinforces their views, no matter how distorted or inaccurate, while dismissing content with which they do not agree as ‘fake news’.’ This undermines democracy as a whole, with audiences not being able to decipher what is true and what is false.
‘If they believe that their votes do not matter because of shadowy elites pulling the country’s strings, why will they bother going through the trouble of casting a ballot?’
- Mentioned by Charlotte Alter
The erosion of an informed citizenry, therefore, is having a direct impact on the outcomes of elections.
“You cannot have a functioning democracy when people are not at the very least occupying the same solar system.”
— Mentioned by Whitney Phillips, a professor at Syracuse, studying online disinformation.
There is little hope for conspiracies fading into the distance now that Trump has left the White House. Regrettably, conspiracy thinking will continue to harm the well functioning of democracy and divide the American people still further. Social media is in large part responsible for their proliferation and thus big tech must take ownership and aid in the quest for truth. It should not be so challenging to decipher facts from falsehoods. In a digital world, social media companies ought to play their part in regaining trust in information sources, allowing citizens to perform their civic duties confidently so that democracies can flourish and not be undermined by the dangerous allure of conspiracy theories.
