The sinister strategy of conspiracy creation
Contrary to popular belief, Trump hasn’t spent the majority of his presidency stumbling from one rant to another in an erratic and inconsistent pattern.
He doesn’t accidentally spread a conspiracy.
Instead, his administration has carefully and deliberately planned the inception, growth and distribution of conspiracy theories, timing them perfectly so that their crescendo hits at the moment the lie is most needed.
The process usually starts with a few ‘doubts’.
Doubts about the media, long before the ‘fake news’ accusations started being batted about.
Doubts about the electoral process, seven months ago, before a single vote was cast.
Doubts about how Trump will be treated should he concede the presidency.
These doubts are probes — dropped into the Twittersphere to gauge, not just support, but aggressive defence, because for conspiracy theories to work well, they need vocal allies and enemies. If there is enough on both sides, these ‘doubt probes’ then start to morph into structured conspiracy campaigns.
Quickly, the doubt develops a slogan such as ‘fake news media’ or ‘clean coal’. Each doubt has a brand developed around it, a core set of messages, some handy hashtags, a few third-party endorsers and even a bit of design chucked in.
As the campaigns take off more fuel is added to the fire. More ‘I told you so moments’ where the only evidence offered is the wild accusations or theories previously peddled. People breathlessly rush to say ‘Trump called this months ago’ producing a funk of careless credibility and ignoring the fact that if the comms machine hadn’t said it months ago, it wouldn’t exist.
The tipping point comes when the lie fades into the background in favour of blind partisan hatred.
It’s the point at which both sides can’t see through their red (or blue) mist and are willing to sacrifice critical thinking in favour of scoring points.
At that point, the comms strategy is simple. Prune and feed. A retweet here, an ejection of a non-believer there. The conspiracy has taken hold. The original lie forgot. The intoxicating air of anger increasing in thickness.
How to counter this?
First, an unrelenting request for evidence and consistent highlighting of where it’s not been offered. Alongside that, the agile and accurate callout of contradictions.
But above all, what's needed is the fortitude to disregard. Recently, we saw major US networks switch off their coverage of the Trump campaign as it became clear a ‘news conference’ was heading down an all to familiar vitriol filled rabbit hole of conspiracy. We all need this to occur more.
And it’s more important than ever that we counter this conspiracy comms strategy decisively. On election day morning, QAnon followers were predicting the internet would be shut-down, so no one could see how badly Trump defeated his opponent. By the afternoon, they’d switched to declaring the censorship would occur so no-one could talk about how the election was being rigged. These phoney predictions might be easily dismissed, but let's not forget that in one breath QAnon was placed on an FBI watch list and in another, one of its cultists took their seat in the US House.
Conspiracy creation is a strategy being deployed by organisations and governments across the world.
It’s deliberate, effective and, above all, cheap. As one of its greatest practitioners is sent packing, it's crucial that the media continue to challenge and where appropriate to ignore outright. Social networks must take responsibility for the ease with which conspiracy can be peddled and put the necessary infrastructure in place to kill off theories before they blossom.
Finally, it’s up to all of us to adopt the critical thinking needed to create an unforgiving environment for those wanting to create conspiracies in a bid to divide us further.
