How to spot bullshit on the internet
A guide to skepticism in the time of coronavirus.
Yesterday I logged into Facebook and was bombarded with posts referring to a “documentary” called Plandemic, in which a disgraced virologist posits some pretty wild ideas about the coronavirus, Big Pharma, the US government, facemasks and vaccines. Now I’m not in the business of debunking conspiracy theories, even ones that sound science-y. It usually backfires because you end up amplifying misinformation in the process, and people prone to believing conspiracy theories will take your arguments as proof that there’s something to hide. That being said, I watched the video and lost 25 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. I’m not going to go through every extraordinary claim made by the scientist interviewed in this clip for the reasons mentioned above. Instead I will describe the tools I use to spot bullshit on the internet, and you can decide for yourself whether the next viral conspiracy theory or miracle cure is credible.
Consider the source
So you’re confronted with a new piece of information on the internet. It’s spreading like wildfire through your newsfeed, everyone’s arguing about it and you don’t know what to believe. Now what? First ask yourself: what is the source of the new information? This refers to the original source and the medium relaying it. Let’s talk about the latter. There’s news, there’s “news,” and then there are passive hosts of content. A reputable news outlet has some measure of accountability to its readers: it will lose subscribers and revenue ($$$) if it’s caught spreading false information, so it will make the effort to fact-check its own reporting. Keep in mind that most news outlets relay the news AND provide commentary on it. A good news source will have a clear demarcation between fact and opinion, but many outlets blur the lines so it’s critical to know what you’re looking at when analyzing a new piece of information. Next there are “news” outlets: they seem newsy but their business model thrives on giving the audience whatever they want to consume (a certain budding news outlet dear to the president’s heart comes to mind). These “news” sources don’t always have to be political — they can be based on any deeply held belief that will keep people clicking through. Finally there are websites that host content, like Youtube, which makes money by showing you as many ads as possible, regardless of the quality of the content they’re sandwiched between. Or Facebook, which makes money by selling your data, which you graciously provide to them every time you engage with a post. These websites have very little incentive to police misinformation, especially if it’s keeping you on their platform, through interest or outrage.
So: new piece of coronavirus information reported by the New York Times? Probably vetted thoroughly, but of course you’re getting it through the lens of a journalist who is not a scientific expert, so take it with a grain of salt. New piece of coronavirus information from [the fictional website I just made up called] organicbabe.net? Take with a very large grain of salt. Perhaps they have an incentive to feed you the information you want to hear. Perhaps they are happy to serve up “natural” home remedies with no evidence for effectiveness if it keeps your attention. New piece of coronavirus information from a random person on Youtube? In my experience it’s almost always misinformation, so approach with extreme caution. Even doctors have been putting out very, very questionable videos. Are you watching a chiropractor expound on his pet theory about coronavirus prevention? He’s not qualified, next video please.
This brings us to our next question: Is the original source an expert on the subject? News sources like those mentioned above are often not the original source of the information, especially if it’s science related. Instead, they are relaying information they gathered from someone else, hopefully an expert in the subject matter. I put my trust in professionals who have a solid reputation in their field and a track record of scholarly contributions in their subject area. One way to judge this is by simply Googling the expert’s name to see what institution they’re associated with and their publication record. If the new piece of information is health or science-related, it’s usually a good sign if the original source is someone with letters after their name, but that isn’t enough. PhDs, MDs, etc. are not infallible. They have biases, agendas, and blindspots like anyone else, so make sure they are an expert in the topic at hand and have maintained good standing in the scientific community. You should also look through the article for comments from other experts in the field to get their perspectives. Usually you will find both supportive and critical opinions from the original source’s peers; if not, then the new information probably hasn’t been seriously vetted.
Figure out the agenda
So you’ve done some detective work and decided that the original source has expertise and credibility relevant to the new piece of information you came across. By now you should have an idea of the agenda or motivation of the original source. Everyone has an agenda, a message they want to convey. It’s up to you to decipher what that agenda might be, and then decide whether you can trust the new information. In a previous post, I discussed the potential motives behind the spread of misinformation: genuine altruism, money, and politics. You should look for these motives whenever you encounter a new piece of information you find on the internet.
Most doctors and scientists have chosen their profession to help people, but that’s not universally true of course. Everyone is susceptible to conflicts of interest, especially if there is money or fame involved. Contrary to popular belief, most doctors and scientists do not rake in tons of cash from Big Pharma (seriously, where’s my check?). But plenty collaborate or have relationships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Most (but not all) doctors and scientists are transparent about these relationships (they must be disclosed in scientific publications and at conference talks), but it never hurts to do a little digging on Google. If you find that Dr. Smith, a strong proponent of Drug X, is on the board of the company that makes Drug X, you should be skeptical of Dr. Smith’s claims because he has a conflict of interest. Lots of scholars also pay their bills by selling books, for example, and a great way to do that is to be highly visible on the internet. Unfortunately, a great way to be highly visible on the internet is to say inflammatory things that may or may not be true.
Another strong motivator is political and personal beliefs, which can skew how a person processes and relays information. Doctors and scientists are vulnerable to this kind of bias like anyone else, even though we’re trained to look at things objectively. It’s okay to have passionate beliefs, as long as you are open to changing those beliefs based on new information. If an expert seems to have very strong convictions that go against the grain of established science, they might not be giving you a full and accurate story. Seek out perspectives from other experts in the field to gauge whether the original source might be unfairly biased. But be careful not to fall into the rabbit hole of confirmation bias yourself!
Red flags
Expertise mismatch: Economists are not qualified to do epidemiological modeling, for example. Even within a scientific discipline, there is so much specialization that you should not just take any old scientist’s word for it. I’m a molecular biologist who studies cancer, not viruses. I don’t make any attempts to speculate on which experimental treatments may or may not be effective against the coronavirus. I limit myself to explaining the cell biology of the most promising treatments and vaccines, and reporting the results of clinical trials in a way that my friends and family can understand, and I feel qualified to do that because I have a deep understanding of how cells work and I have experience following clinical trials for cancer treatments. But I would never go further than that because I know the limitations of my expertise.
Out of the game: If the original source is a scientist who hasn’t published in their own field for ten years, they might not be very up-to-date on the latest advances. Science marches on and it’s easy to be left behind if you’re not keeping up with the recent literature.
Bad behavior: If the original source is a scientist who has had a publication (or few) retracted, it suggests sloppy science, misconduct or fraud. Scientists with a retraction record often blame others or the system for their failures, but the reality is almost always that their findings can’t be replicated or worse, they were caught faking data, which is a cardinal sin in science!
Science jargon: If you find that the source of new information is using a lot of scientific words that you don’t understand, and the intended audience is clearly laypeople: red flag! Often people with weak evidence will use scientific jargon to make their point seem legitimate to the average person, and yet their misrepresentations are completely obvious to anyone who speaks “science.”
Lack of evidence: An extraordinary claim should be backed up with robust evidence. Sources should be cited, but be wary because it’s not uncommon for someone with an agenda or a lack of expertise to misrepresent the evidence they reference.
Confirmation bias: Does the explosive new information you’ve just come across fit perfectly into your worldview? Is it only being reported on the particular niche websites you frequent? If so, you might want to think twice because it may just be a ploy to get you to click and share.
Conspiracy theories: Big Pharma doesn’t want you to know this one weird trick! Conspiracy theories are rarely ever true, but they have truthiness to them. If you start to research individual claims, usually the whole thing unravels.
Cure-alls: I’ve said this before — beware simple solutions to complex problems. If someone is pushing a treatment that cures lots of random diseases, my bullshit meter goes off the scale. Dude on the internet has not discovered a cure for cancer that has eluded the entire scientific/pharmaceutical/biotech enterprise for decades, end of story.
Plandemic doesn’t pass the smell test
This interview with a disgruntled former virologist, masquerading as a slick documentary, also has my bullshit meter off the scale. It checks many of the boxes listed above. First, the medium: Youtube. No incentive to be truthful, every reason to be provocative. Then, the source: Judy Mikovits, PhD. She’s an expert on retroviruses and yet she hasn’t published in her field in eight years. In 2009 she published a seemingly groundbreaking paper in Science describing a potential viral driver (XMRV) behind chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). This study ended up being retracted because no one in the CFS field could replicate it and it was discovered that the main finding of the paper was almost certainly due to contamination of blood samples. Dr. Mikovits is even an author on a later publication refuting her original finding, and yet she still won’t admit she was wrong. It seems she blames everyone but herself for her fall from grace: Dr. Anthony Fauci (who she never directly worked with or for) is the main target of her ire, but she also faults the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert Redfield (current head of CDC) and Big Pharma, for good measure. She lays out a very convoluted, difficult to follow conspiracy in which she is both the hero and the victim. Apparently Dr. Fauci squashed a critical HIV discovery she made as a research technician, killing millions in Africa, and has been silencing her ever since. Also, he is responsible for Ebola and the coronavirus pandemic? I don’t know, it was hard to keep up. In my opinion, she’s cocooned herself with this wild story to preserve her own ego and avoid responsibility for her failed career. And that would be fine if she kept it to herself. Instead, she’s pushing out dangerous disinformation about facemasks and vaccines that I will not repeat here. She should know better but she’s clearly compromised by unscientific personal beliefs as well as financial motives (she published a new book laying out her conspiracy theories about the scientific community just last month). I’m not going to address her individual claims because frankly, there’s no reason to take them seriously once you know where she’s coming from. But if you’ve seen the video and want to read a thorough debunking, I recommend this article in Science Magazine and this article by NPR, both of which directly address many of the false claims in the video.
So to reiterate my strategy for critically analyzing stuff on the internet:
- Confirm it comes from a reliable source. If you’re not an expert on the topic, you have no choice but to rely on other’s expertise and credibility, so vet them carefully.
- Figure out the original source’s agenda. Make sure there are no conflicts of interest.
- Watch for red flags!
I hope you found this guide to detecting bullshit useful. Please remember to put on your skeptic hat when you come across the next conspiracy theory or miracle cure on social media.