Combatting conspiracy theories

[Oniya]

A couple nights ago, I was sitting in my front room when I heard my neighbor 'chatting' with one of her friends outside.  (This woman has a voice that can easily cut through most background noise, even when my window unit is on.)  She was recounting a particularly racist, homophobic and transphobic rumor that I recognized as having festered up from Infowars - namely that Michelle Obama wasn't born female. 

Part of me wanted to throw open the door and declaim that this was a lie, circulated by a guy who gets his jollies harassing getting other people to harass the parents of dead kids.

Part of me wanted to go out and ask why the hell it even mattered what Barack Obama and his spouse did in bed, especially since we're almost a full presidential term past when he left office.  (Inner snark - one of the questions that they ask patients with suspected head trauma or stroke is 'what year is it, and who is President of the United States'.)

A fairly large part of me realized that neither of these approaches were likely to have much effect.  Other than sharing a parking lot and about 20 feet of sidewalk/road surface, we don't really interact.  We both put up our candidate signs during election season, and that's about it.

But what do you do when something like this happens?  I'm sure things are only going to ramp up over the next four months.

[Regina Minx]

I think before we can talk about combatting conspiracy theories, it might be useful to understand why otherwise ordinary people might believe the most outlandish things. There are many psychological factors that trend to conspiracy theory belief including

• Being less educated. This is fairly obvious.
• A desire to feel special. Those who want to stand out from the crowd can adopt extreme beliefs to do so.
• Feelings of powerlessness. Seeking explanations for events beyond your control, no matter how ludicrous and bizarre can be preferable to being the victim of blind circumstances.
• A need for certainty. People often seek explanations for things, even when the explanation is really 'the world is a messy place and shit happens.' We have a tendency to prefer comforting answers we can't verify for the uncertainty that comes with saying 'I don't know and I can never know.'

Knowing this, what sort of interventions can actually persuade people to give up on conspiracy theories? That was studied by Kellog School professor Cynthia Wang, who found one promising technique. You can't make someone more educated or less narcissistic, but you can encourage them to take concrete actions in pursuit of their goals. That step, which reduces feelings of powerlessness and reinforces the link between cause and effect, has an effect.

This article also furthers our understanding of compensa-tory control theory in uncovering a key antecedent that influ-ences  one’s  sense  of  control,  particularly  in  such  way  that  conspiratorial  perceptions  are  decreased  rather  than  height-ened. These findings reveal the link between how we pursue our own goals and how we see the environment within which we  pursue  those  goals,  and  confirm  a  close  relationship  between  promotion  focus  and  a  sense  of  personal  control.  When  people  are  promotion  focused,  they  exert  personal  control in their environment—which leads them to see their environment  as  controllable  rather  than  controlling.  Thus,  this  article  is  one  of  the  first  to  link  specific  forms  of  goal  pursuit to perceptions of collective and organizational actors.

Interestingly, these findings provide a nuanced contrast to research  that  suggests  prevention-focused  individuals  may  be  more  sensitive  to  negative  information,  and  that  their  preference to avoid losses will go hand-in-hand with an alert-ness  for  potential  dangers  in  a  situation.  Thus,  though  pre-vention-focused  individuals  may  be  accustomed  to  be  “on  the  lookout”  for  negative  information  in  their  environment  (Förster,  Grant,  Idson,  &  Higgins,  2001)  and  process  that  negative information more easily (Yoon et al., 2012), it does not  mean  that  conspiracies—which  are  often  negative  and  threatening—will be more easily adopted by them. Instead, our findings demonstrate that prevention focus does not ele-vate conspiratorial beliefs; rather it is promotion focus, and its concomitant sense of personal control, that acts to dampen these patterns of cognition.

[Callie Del Noire]

One of my friends, for a long while, would post the most outrageous things on Facebook and/or emails.  I did a quick check on one site and ran a few things when I visited him

A few simple things like tracking where the site was registered and where the IP was run out of. (Fun note, a web site called ‘the times of Mexico and Central America’, registered out of a Panamanian anonymizer service and an ISP service ran out of Russia).

I hate this part of the internet, the ease with which lies can be spread. It galls me that most folks are lazy and will usually not check the info they read.

[Tolvo]

In person it is nearly impossible other than to use peer pressure. If you are talking online or via text you can in details show links and sources, in person you really can't and whatever you say it's much easier to ignore unless you have some sort of influence over them or a crowd to appeal to and get on your side.

What I find to be the most effective is to find the roots of something and try to find where those roots may lead to hatred of them. I have a friend who is very proud of his Ukrainian heritage and who is obsedd with Ukraine and his Jewish roots from his Ukrainian family, it's very easy when he shares something from some Neo Nazi to find them saying negative things about Jewish people, and at times about Ukraine(Roosh is a prime example). By doing this I help them to realize what is going on since they can recognize people targeting them and spreading falsehoods about them. This won't always work but a thing about Neo Nazis at least is they hate basically everyone, even their calls to return to "Old Ways" usually include their hatred of European white ethnic groups and identities with their fantastical revised histories for them.

However as I said that is tricky depending on what identities someone holds close to themselves. Still it can be good to do digging and be able to show exactly who is saying what, where things originate. Callie Del Noire mentioned a part of it through web hosting, but for instance when people share Quilette articles you can show others from that publication such as them publishing an article about measuring the worth of people by the structure of their skull.

For many factual information does not matter, while many of them scream "Facts not feelings!" they mostly will ignore any facts that they don't feel is right. A tool that can be handy in those situations is peer pressure, getting as many people as possible to view them negatively by making it clear what they believe. Know the sources for their information can be helpful. If hanging out with friends and one starts sharing information from Mike Cernovich to persuade others, you can mention how he indirectly got a man to attack a family restaurant with a gun and almost got children killed while bringing up on your phone or texting the others articles about Pizzagate and what happened. You can phrase it in a way to make them feel guilt, to make them feel stupid and make them look bad in front of others. "You believe stuff from that conspiracy theorist who got a dude to shoot up a pizza place full of kids? Holy shit dude wow I didn't realize you were that far gone."

Another option is intervention, with those who care about them to do an intervention to try and reach them and show that they can come back from these conspiracy theories, that others are scared for them and want their friend/family member back, etc. This one requires a support network to help though it can be done one on one but is much harder.

In general nothing will work even half the time. Many of these people simply hate, they will ignore any logical consistency and believe whatever affirms their worldview without professional help. But you can't exactly have someone committed for sharing Facebook posts claiming Mexican super soldiers used their lightning powers to revive Hitler but somehow now he's Mexican and sixty feet tall and is going to break the wall and invade the USA. If it's possible to get them into therapy and if they share anything that they believe the therapist will probably try to help them de-escalate and become less radical if possible.

[Oniya]

Yeah - I'm not anywhere near 'in' enough with her circle to pull off 'we're worried about you'.  She and her husband are both very outspoken Trump supporters, probably with the belief that he was 'on their side'.  I've heard both of them use racial slurs towards others in the neighborhood.  Like us, they live in a row-house (although theirs is a corner plot and has a side-yard), and have a nearly-grown kid (possibly a few years older than ours).  This is why I thought maybe the Infowars harassment might be a crack I could work with, because losing a child is something no decent parent wants to think of - much less, having someone claim that you're lying about losing a child.  Attacking the source as opposed to attacking the information directly.

[Tolvo]

It is unfortunately a situation where there is probably nothing you can do to change them. However, you can still work to let others in your community know you don't agree with them and that you do care about them and welcome them. In turn it might end up influencing the hateful members of your community, but even if not supporting the others(Which you might already do) could go a long way to fighting the negative with positive. A part of conspiracy theories is about people feeling emboldened, which goes hand in hand with prejudice and bigotry. The more they have to question whether they'll be accepted the more likely it is they will not give in. That could in the end be how to apply a form of peer pressure and communal pressure upon them. But likely you as an individual can't solve this problem which is probably giving advice you've heard a lot already. It's advice I hate but a lot of things don't have a solution that is a guaranteed success.

[Lustful Bride]

Something very appropriate for this thread.

[Twisted Crow]

'Am I interested in pursuing the truth to find absolution? Or am I attempting to smother or obscure the truth?'

I always keep this mental spirit when faced with contesting any conspiracy theory. And I feel that it is especially important when a broken clock can still be right twice a day.

[Oniya]

'Am I interested in pursuing the truth to find absolution? Or am I attempting to smother or obscure the truth?'

I always keep this mental spirit when faced with contesting any conspiracy theory. And I feel that it is especially important when a broken clock can still be right twice a day.

I'm not sure I understand?  What does finding forgiveness have to do with whether a statement is true or false?  Kids died at Sandy Hook.  Michelle Obama is a cis-woman.  There was no kiddie porn ring at Comet Ping Pong. 

[Twisted Crow]

Sorry, I was speaking generally regarding attitude to conspiracy theory.

[Oniya]

Ah - as in 'avoiding spreading conspiracy theories'.  That is, the difference between spreading a false statement because the truth makes you uncomfortable (and you would rather believe the lie) and spreading it because you want to make others believe it (regardless of whether you believe it or not.)

Gut instinct is that my neighbor simply believes what the talking heads say, and if it makes 'the other side' look bad, it's icing.  And she'd rather believe what the talking heads say, because otherwise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlZU02G3ak

[TheGlyphstone]

One of my housemates listens to Infowars in the common area sometimes. I have to bite my tongue bad sometimes.

[Andol]

Eh for me and my stepdad conspiracy theories have always been a thing of interest. Not out of belief that they are real, but simply that they are fun to talk about for us. A game really that we both know the thing we are talking about isn't true... might have a grain of truth... or in some cases a truth that can't be reach... but it is just fun to talk about and that is all. It takes the boring and makes it fun... like government alien experiments at Area 51. 

[Tolvo]

Not exactly the same thing as what is being talked about, there can be a bit of difference though for intance my father beliefs in ancient aliens and stuff of that nature, along with the notions that Jews rule the world, people of color are inferior, Hillary Clinton assassinated a DNC member, and often uses it to reinforce his views of things like concentration camps, Neo Nazi terrorism, support for executing all LGBTQIA+ people despite knowing that includes me.

[Skynet]

A lot of conspiracy theorists are often people who either

a.) are some form of societal outcast or felt society has failed them, so end up falling for alternative explanations of the world as a means of rejecting said society
b.) have a hard life and need an outlet to blame their problems
c.) have a personality type which lends itself to unconditional trust of an authority figure, which can being a conspiracy theorist
d.) are part of a society and culture where a government and/or religious institutions are propping up said conspiracy theory, and penalties for going against the grain can result in legal penalties and social alienation.

As a result, deprogramming these people requires finding out what's going on in their personal lives (economic, social, etc) and finding a fix to them. When they're not going through high levels of stress and alienation they may be able to see things more clearly.

In regards to D this requires different tactics, as even if they form doubts they cannot express such things publicly if doing so means they'll be thrown in jail without a trial or have their resulting friends and family cut off all contact with them.