Conspiracy Theories – The Danger of Rabbit Holes

It’s a couple of weeks after Joe Biden became President. And the conspiracy theories are still flying. Trump was cheated. Biden is a paedophile. And a favourite Christian one – the vaccine for Covid is the Mark of the Beast.

All these conspiracies are the result of rabbit holes. By that I mean, when we have a certain point of view, we tend to go down a hole and surround ourselves with like-minded people. That’s all well and good if we were also to be surrounded with other views, including the actual news from trusted sources. But rabbit holes don’t allow for that.

The sadness of recent times is that many who have a strong view have turned to conspiracy theories to support their view. These theories give a perception of control by providing a channel for anger or fear.

The result is an even stronger view with those same people then removing themselves entirely from any contrary views. If, for example, I were to post onto a Facebook thread of someone saying that Trump won the election and highlighted a neutral news article that showed otherwise, it’s likely that I would be asked not to post at all on that thread.

Hence there can be no argument, only one point of view.

This has become worse still with many taking themselves off the broader reach social media such as Facebook and Twitter and joining lesser known services such as Telegram, Gab and Parler (the latter now closed), that tend to specialise in conspiracy theories. Deeper rabbit holes in other words. It means that people are being misled and lied to. They are surrounding themselves with those lies and - of course - no one else can possibly be correct.

We have a social media problem. Already Facebook sends us posts it thinks we might like, along with adverts we may respond to. So there is an immediate filter supporting our views and limiting access to contrary views. The new social media families are taking this a stage further.

As a consequence, people genuinely believe some of the QAnon theories in the States. Crazy stuff. No, Hilary Clinton does not sacrifice babies.

I saw a sad one the other day that leached out onto Facebook from one of the new sites. A right-wing website plagiarized an Associated Press article to falsely claim that Pope Francis was arrested on human trafficking charges. And thousands believed it. Seemingly they still do.

I love the post from my friend Anna (shown here). Yes, believe in the mainstream media. Make sure you get your news from a variety of sources. And allow those with different views to interact with you.

No more rabbit holes!