Conspiracy theories and other viral quackery
Even before Canada had its first documented case of COVID-19 in late January, the conspiracy theories were already flying.
The first one I noticed was that story about how the virus was stolen from a lab in Canada by a Chinese spy team who then proceeded to weaponize it. Then there are the QAnon believers, a far-right conspiracy cult that also promotes drinking Miracle Mineral Supplement (active ingredient: industrial bleach) to cure COVID-19, and thinks the virus is a population control scheme orchestrated by Bill Gates. Ironies abound.
One coronavirus conspiracy theory that’s gained a lot of traction is the one that blames COVID-19 on 5G mobile phone technology, possibly because it got a celebrity bump when folks like Woody Harrelson, M.I.A. and John Cusack helped promote the theory on social media. Last week, that theory inspired arsonists to attack four cellphone towers in Quebec, the first such attacks in Canada. (There have been incidents in Europe and the United Kingdom.)
Surely, though, people with science credentials as impressive as these celebs wouldn’t retweet misinformation, right? To find out, we turned to an expert on the matter, Jonathan Jarry, science communicator at McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, who recently wrote about this issue, to ask if there was any truth to the idea that 5G was causing COVID-19?
“No. No. Adamantly no,” said Jarry. “There have been some very worrying acts of violence and destruction of these towers in some countries including, recently, four in Quebec. It’s easy to sort of point a finger and label them as these fringe conspiracy theories, but when people really believe in these things they can actually take action in the real world and that can have some very bad consequences.”
At a time when we desperately need our communications network to function, this sabotage is no laughing matter. It’s not the first time that a conspiracy theory has led to realworld problems though. Vaccine compliance suffers when people spread misinformation about risks, which leads to measles outbreaks and fatalities. Bereaved parents who lost their children at Sandy Hook have been harassed by people who believe the mass shooting was a hoax, thanks to Alex Jones’ “theories” on Infowars. Jones, incidentally, became even more famous for a 60-second spiel on how ready he was to eat his neighbours.
It should be glaringly obvious to most people that you shouldn’t plan on eating your neighbours, that Sandy Hook was a real tragedy and that harassing bereaved parents is beyond cruel, and that COVID-19 is caused by a novel coronavirus called SARSCoV-2. Pizzagate provoked two violent attacks on Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C.-area restaurant that was said to have a child sex ring operating in its basement, even though it didn’t have a basement.
Given that many conspiracy theories are easy to see through, why do people believe them? Neuroscience, Jarry explains, is part of the answer.
“It’s basically how our brain is wired,” he says. “There are shortcuts that our brain takes when we think and these shortcuts are usually quite useful because we cannot take, you know, four hours to internally debate our next move when we hear a rustling in the grass, since it could be a predator. So our brain takes shortcuts to ensure our survival and that means that we see patterns even when there are no patterns.”
One example of non-existent pattern spotting is the way people see faces in potatoes, toast, clouds, red peppers or even the surface of Mars. We look for faces because when we were babies faces, attached to bodies that fed us, were key to our survival.
The flip side is that we’re also likely to perceive malevolent predators where there are none. The alarm bells ring, triggering us to skip the rational thought and go into full defence mode, as though a grizzly bear is in the bushes behind us, even though it’s really just a YouTube video. It’s a maladaptive trait in modern society, wherein the vast majority of problems require careful logical thought, not fear-based fast action.
It seems to me conspiracy theories are getting worse these days, but maybe that’s just my brain looking for patterns that don’t exist, right? Jarry says it’s hard to know for sure, since it’s difficult to measure belief in conspiracy theories over time, but there’s no doubt that they’re prevalent. He says research suggests half of all Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Canadians are not immune, either: One-third of Canadians believe in some sort of COVID-19-related conspiracy theory, 5G or otherwise.
There are factors that might be aggravating the situation, such as the speed of communication. And there are factors that can make individuals more susceptible. People who believe one conspiracy theory are more prone to believe others. Another factor is a mistrust of authority and expertise, which has been on the rise for decades as people have questioned established science, even when scientists have achieved consensus. And finally, living in anxious times doesn’t help.
“Whenever something of this amplitude takes place — and especially when people feel powerless — there will always be a segment of the population that imagines the official story is not correct and that there are shadowy forces at work that are lying to us,” says Jarry, referring to the pandemic. “So it is, unfortunately, to be expected.”
Fortunately, though, we don’t have to just resign ourselves to it. Jarry recommends the techniques described in a book called “Escaping the Rabbit Hole: How to Debunk Conspiracy Theories Using Facts, Logic, and Respect,” by Mick West. And that last part of the title, “respect,” is key to breaking through. It’s about genuinely engaging with conspiracists, asking them about their actual fears and building trust by really listening. Sometimes more than you really want to, Jarry quips.
Given that these theories have the potential to injure people, though — at a time when we desperately need to listen to experts and authorities, and can’t afford any new problems — it’s definitely worth the effort.