The age of the conspiracy theory
We live in a time when it’s easier than ever to get information straight from the source. We also live in a time of thriving conspiracy theories.
Funny, don’t you think?
One of the most difficult challenges in this amazing digital revolution can be summarized in one simple sentence:
“I know you have a PhD in this, but I have googled it, and you’re wrong.”
To understand why this happens, you need to understand what the 20th century was like: a hundred years of strong authorities. Church, school, state, media.
We are breaking free — for good and for bad.
Often we go far. Far enough, as a matter of fact, to end up looking like revolting teenagers. True expertise is thrown out, in favor of opinions. Because we are so wonderfully free. Free to form our own opinions. Free to shape our own world view.
Free to choose the facts we like.
Journalism is too often caught in what the BBC calls “false balance” — even though the scientific community knows that climate change is manmade, and the ratio amongst the experts can be desribed as 99–1, it is somehow considered correct to allow even a single percentage to be represented in a discussion, as if this was a 50–50 issue.
It just isn’t.
In various ways I have written about this issue for several years. Let me take it a step further:
It concerns me greatly that there are plenty of Americans who were deeply and honestly surprised when Mitt Romney did not win the latest presidential election.
Why? How could they be surprised?
They had watched Fox News, and Fox News only.
If that — and a politically self-affirming Facebook feed — is your only source of information, you are going to be surprised when your guy doesn’t win. And hence start to believe that there must have been something fishy about the election.
The supposed objectivity of Facebook’s and Google’s search algorithms is perhaps the most important thing to discuss at the moment. And there is a knowledge deficit, thus a power deficit. For the average user, this lack of knowledge about the basic principles behind algorithmically curated information is a big and real problem. And that’s why educating for digital equality is the most meaningful thing I can spend my time on. (Do read Eli Pariser’s book “The Filter Bubble”, or watch his TED talk here.)
Facebook was supposed to be the best big new town square — where anyone could meet anyone, to learn, to argue, to make policy.
Do you see what’s happening here? It has instead become a walled garden of likeminded people, where you never risk to bump into something unpleasant or challenging.
Fragmentation of mainstream media leads to fragmentation of society. This in turn leads to a shrinking loyalty with common ideas that hold a country together. Such as, you know, democracy.
So what can we do? How do we push back the conspiracy theories? How do we create that new town square where facts rule over opinions? How do we prevent ourselves from the oblivience that automatic curation of content creates?
I won’t pretend I can solve this in a Medium post on a Tuesday.
Let’s just say that identifying some of the main features of the challenge might be a start. I will listen with interest to any reflections on the matter.
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Andreas Ekström is a journalist, analyst, author and keynote speaker — based in Sweden, but working all around the world. He writes on Medium every Tuesday. Read more here: http://www.andreasekstrom.se/english/
