IS DEMOCRACY UNDER THREAT?

QUITE POSSIBLY. Democracy relies on its citizens making an informed decision based on facts. When significant sections of the population no longer give credence to facts that should ‘anchor a sense of shared reality’, to quote Charlotte Alter in Time magazine, well, that democracy ceases to function effectively.

Add to that the fact that these theories can lead, and have led, to extremists taking action in the real world against an imagined threat, and the picture starts to look quite scary. A report by the United Nations warned that in more localised expressions, extreme right-wing terrorist groups and individuals ‘have sought to exploit Covid-19-related anxieties and grievances, using conspiracy theories to advance their existing narratives, increase and diversify their support base, and build bridges to other groups’.

There is hope, though. Social media platforms are scrambling to introduce third-party fact checkers and algorithms that behave more organically and transparently, and that are more user-friendly, says Ebrahim, as well as tighter user policies that start to take some heed of developing regulation in various parts of the world.

Perhaps if and when the algorithms are adapted, users are educated and we are all more self-aware when it comes to the in-built biases in our own brains, we will finally understand the wisdom in author Terence McKenna’s admonishment to conspiracy theorists everywhere: ‘The truth that dare not speak itself is that no one is in control. Absolutely no one.’

Conspiracy theories have been, and will always be, humanity’s attempt to understand the world by connecting unrelated dots without substantiation.