Conspiracy theories everywhere – Why so many people spread Corona myths

Simon Hurtz

Updated 2 hours ago—

Many know it: the aunt who tells Whatsapp that garlic helps against Covid-19; the friends of the sports club, who claims on Facebook that the “global elite” is spreading the pandemic via the 5G mobile communications standard. In many families and circles of friends there are people who believe rumors, false reports and conspiracy myths. This is not a new phenomenon, but the corona virus has turned one unpleasant colleague, who spread false reports about refugees, into a mass movement: Messenger and social media are full of corona nonsense.

As early as February, the World Health Organization warned of an “infodemic”. False reports spread faster than the virus and are just as dangerous, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The disseminators do not necessarily act out of bad intent, their drive is often simply fear. But in addition to the proverbially concerned citizens, criminals and political actors are increasingly involved. They want to make money or split societies.

If you want to understand why people share so much nonsense, you have to do what most conspiracy theorists refuse to do: look very closely and differentiate sharply. Because not every rumor is a lie, and there are certainly reasons to question the current measures again and again – only that usually has nothing to do with those “critical questions” that suggest secret plans by governments without any factual basis.

Basically, people who are afraid are more susceptible to false messages. In an threatening situation, our ancestors usually only had to know a few things that, in case of doubt, made the difference between life and death: “Where’s the saber-toothed tiger?” or “What does the mammoth do?” On the other hand, there is a lot of information in circulation today, especially thanks to new forms of media. Media literacy no longer means getting information, but filtering the important information, differentiating fact from fiction. But precisely the ability to critically examine claims suffers when fear turns off the mind: fast thinking overlaps slow thinking, as the psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahnemann puts it.

This mechanism is one of several concepts that cognitive scientists use to explain why it is human to fall for disinformation. You believe allegations if they correspond to your own worldview (confirmation errors), place random correlations in a causal context (causal errors) and overestimate your own knowledge (Dunning Kruger effect). The cousin who forwards the confused Whatsapp chain letter probably doesn’t mean it badly, on the contrary: she wants to inform the people she cares about.

The longing for simple answers

Hundreds of millions of people are currently worried about this. The majority of the world’s population has been in a permanent state of emergency for months. The situation is evolving on a daily basis, with new breaking news rushing by. Even science cannot deliver definitive truths. When the virus spread to China at the beginning of the year, the Robert Koch Institute assessed the risk to Germany as “very low”.

Some people therefore lose confidence in research and sense incompetence or opportunism. Scientists are actually doing research under time pressure and adapting their recommendations to the current state of knowledge. But it keeps changing because Covid-19 is relatively new and even the most complex model cannot predict with certainty how a global pandemic will develop. This situation plays into the hands of actors who offer supposedly simple answers and solutions or present scapegoats to whom one can blame.

Politicians and celebrities spread conspiracy myths

Initially, it was mainly fraudsters and criminals who used the corona virus: they flooded the net with phishing emails and tried to sell dubious services and useless antidotes. In the meantime, financial motives have been overlaid by political ones. Right-wing radicals increasingly mix racist, anti-Semitic and misanthropic propaganda with corona conspiracy myths. They argue against the “global elites” – in these circles a slanderous code for Jews – who allegedly would have launched Covid-19 into the world. In this country, too, outrageous theories are shared that Bill and Melinda Gates represent as the pullers behind the WHO, videos with titles like “Gates captures Germany!” are accessed millions of times.

Such lies and slanders are also so successful because politicians and celebrities continue to spin the conspiracy stories. Figures like the singer Xavier Naidoo or the vegan chef Attila Hildmann present themselves as persecuted opposition figures, Hildmann openly calls for armed resistance. They reach hundreds of thousands of people via social networks and messengers like Telegram. A study by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford shows that these influencers make a significant contribution to spreading the nonsense around the world: They only sell a fifth of the informative contributions, but thus trigger 69 percent of the interactions.

The sensible ones outnumber them

This has consequences: In the UK alone, more than 60 cell towers were set on fire and more than 50 employees of mobile phone companies were attacked. The attackers were convinced that 5G technology would be used to spread Covid-19. Similar arson attacks have occurred in more than half a dozen other European countries.

At a time when even the U.S. President is spreading unscientific nonsense, it is sometimes difficult to keep mind. It can help to keep an eye on the big picture: a few hundred thousand share nonsense, a few hundred go crazy, but many hundreds of millions of people face the crisis without paranoia and conspiracy beliefs.

Posted at 1:11 PM today-