Conspiracy theories have always existed, but we now live in world with more conspiracy theory believers and faster conspiracy theory spread than ever before. We know some of the reasons. Social media spread credible lies fast, even faster than they spread facts. Conspiracy theories are very effective political tools that can be used by dictators to influence uneducated voters in other nations. But it is not just the internet and politics – more is at play.
First, we noted that many of the conspiracy theory
spreaders were not regular people, but instead were bots programmed to
manipulate others. This is normal in social media, and we used a strong tool
for separating those from actual humans. Next, we found that regular people were
driven by fear – the greater the threat from COVID-19, the more conspiracy
theories they spouted. That included conspiracy theories saying that there was
no such thing as COVID-19, it was all a lie. Believing in such a conspiracy
theory and acting on it is exactly wrong when the infection rate is high. We
are confident that this conspiracy theory killed people.
Equally disturbing, people were encouraged to continue
propagating new conspiracy theories, or the same, by seeing their statements retweeted
by others. In other words, the joy of seeing one’s conspiracy theory of
COVID-19 becoming popular among others drove people towards more conspiracy
theorizing.
It also drove them towards a variety of conspiracy
theories, including some theories that cannot both be true. COVID-19 cannot
both be a lie designed to keep people at home and a bioweapon designed by China,
but the same people said both of these, often within a week of each other. It
is true that they generally preferred similar conspiracy theories (see the
graph above), but inconsistent conspiracy theories by the same people is a
deeply troubling behavior.
In our data, conspiracy theories look like a form of
reality denial. If the world presents people with information – real information
– that is troubling to them, they can escape into conspiracy theories.
This should concern us greatly because there are many
sources of fear, and many ways of manipulating conspiracy theories, including political
reasons. For example, does the US have an affordability problem? Let’s find a
conspiracy theory explaining it. And the conspiracy theory will distract people
from addressing the problem, allowing it to persist.
