PROVIDENCE, RI (AP) – Daniel Roberts has not had a vaccination since he was 6 years old. No reinforcements, no vaccines against tetanus. His parents taught him that vaccines were dangerous, and when the coronavirus arrived, they called it a scam. The vaccine, they said, was the real threat.
So when the 29-year-old from Tennessee got his COVID-19 chance at his local Walmart last month, it seemed like an achievement. A break from your past.
“Five hundred thousand people died in this country. This is not a scam, ”said Roberts, talking about the conspiracy theories adopted by family and friends. “I don’t know why I didn’t believe all of this. I think I chose to believe the facts. “
As the world struggles to break the grip of COVID-19, psychologists and disinformation experts are studying why the pandemic has spawned so many conspiracy theories that it has led people to avoid masks, social detachment and vaccines.
They are seeing links between beliefs in the COVID-19 falsehoods and trust in social media as a source of news and information.
And they are concluding that the COVID-19 conspiracy theories persist, providing a false sense of empowerment. Offering hidden or secret explanations, they give the believer a sense of control in a situation that would otherwise seem random or frightening.
The findings have implications not only for the response to the pandemic, but also for the next “infodemic”, a term used to describe the COVID-19 disinformation crisis.
“We need to learn from what happened to make sure that we can prevent it from happening next time,” said former American surgeon general Richard Carmona, who served in the George W. Bush administration. “The masks become a symbol of your political party. People are saying that vaccines are useless. The average person is confused: who do I believe in? “
About 1 in 4 Americans said they believed the pandemic was “definitely” or “probably” intentionally created, according to a Pew Research Center June survey. Other conspiracy theories focus on economic restrictions and vaccine safety. Increasingly, these baseless claims are creating real-world problems.
In January, anti-vaccine activists forced a vaccine clinic at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to close for a day. In Europe, dozens of cell towers were burned because of bizarre claims that 5G wireless signals were triggering the infection. Elsewhere, a pharmacist destroyed doses of vaccine, medical workers were attacked and hundreds died after consuming toxins touted as cures – all because of the COVID-19 falsehoods.
The most popular conspiracy theories tend to help people explain complicated and tumultuous events, when the truth can be too problematic to accept, according to Helen Lee Bouygues, founder and president of the Paris-based Reboot Foundation, which researches and promotes critical thinking on the internet era.
These theories often appear after significant or frightening moments in history: the moon landing, the Sept. 11 attacks or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, when many found it difficult to accept that a lone, crazed sniper could kill the president. Vast conspiracies involving the CIA, the mafia or others are easier to digest.
“People need big explanations for big problems, for big world events,” said John Cook, a cognitive scientist and conspiracy theory expert at Monash University in Australia. “Random explanations – like bats or wet markets – are just psychologically unsatisfactory.”
This impulse is so strong, Cook said, that people tend to believe contradictory conspiracy theories. Roberts said his parents, for example, initially thought that COVID-19 was connected to cell towers, before deciding that the virus was actually a scam. The only explanations they did not consider, he said, were those that came from medical experts.
Mistrust of science, institutions and traditional news sources are strongly associated with stronger beliefs in conspiracy theories, as well as support for pseudoscience.
Confidence in American institutions has been further eroded by false statements by leaders such as President Donald Trump, who have repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus, suggested bleach as a treatment, and impaired the management experts themselves.
An analysis by Cornell University researchers determined that Trump is the biggest driver of false claims of coronavirus. Studies also show that conservatives are more likely believe in conspiracy theories or share incorrect information COVID-19.
Carmona said he was addressing a group of coronavirus executives recently when a man declared that the pandemic was created by the Chinese government and Democrats to undermine Trump’s reelection candidacy.
“When people start to believe their own facts and reject anything the other side says, we are in serious trouble,” he said.
A shared distrust in American institutions has helped to unite various groups behind the banner of COVID-19 conspiracy theories. They include far-right groups concerned about masked blockades and mandates, anti-vaccine activists and supporters. from QAnon, who believe Trump is waging a secret war against a powerful conspiracy of satanic cannibals.
In addition to obtaining information on the COVID-19 conspiracy theories, researchers are finding possible solutions to the broader problem of online misinformation. They include more intense efforts by social media companies and new regulations.
Facebook, Twitter and other platforms have long faced criticism for allowing disinformation to flourish. They have been acting more aggressively on COVID-19 disinformation, suggesting that platforms could do more to contain disinformation on other topics, such as climate change, Cook said.
“It shows that it is a matter of will and not technical innovation,” said Cook.
Facing our species’ attraction to conspiracy theories can be more challenging. The teaching of critical thinking and media literacy in schools is essential, experts say, since the internet will only grow as a source of news.
In recent years, an idea called the inoculation theory you made a good impression. It involves the use of online games or tutorials to train people to think more critically about information.
An example: Cambridge University researchers created the online game Go Viral!, which teaches players how to create their own misleading content.
Studies show that games increase resistance to misinformation online, but like many vaccines, the effects are temporary, leading researchers to ask themselves, as Cook said, “How do you give them the booster injection?”
Someday, these games can be placed as advertisements before online videos, or promoted with prizes, as a way to regularly vaccinate the public against misinformation.
“The real solution is education,” said Bouygues. “COVID has shown us how dangerous disinformation and conspiracy theories can be, and that we have a lot of work to do.”