The truth behind the global spread of conspiracy theories

A recent YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project global survey revealed significant numbers of people around the world believe Covid-19 was created deliberately, has killed far fewer people than reported, or is a hoax and does not actually exist, blaming the symptoms of Covid-19 on 5G radio waves; or some sort of sinister plot to control population.

But Ramey told Arabian Business the spread of bogus information is nothing new, from those who dispute the authenticity of the moon landing and the assassination of US President John F Kennedy, to the sighting of UFOs, bigfoot and even the Loch Ness Monster.

Adam Ramey, associate professor of political science at NYU Abu Dhabi

Although he conceded it has increased over the last 10 years. He said: “I think, for me, where a lot of this angst comes from is the financial crisis back in 2008. To me that’s the breaking point because I think for a lot of people that crisis was viewed as a failure of economic and political elites. There was this idea that we were just regular people who didn’t know anything about the economy, but we trust the political and economic leaders to run everything.

“Then the entire system collapsed and so many people lost their life savings, they lost their retirement accounts, their homes etc. And it led to this deepening of distrust among experts, particularly among people on the political right.

“We’ve seen in the last 10 years, especially in the last five years, this surge in populism that is a revolt, not just about science, science just happened to be the biggest victim of it right now, but it’s a revolt against experts.

“You don’t know better than I do. I can go on the internet and diagnose myself by Googling symptoms. I don’t need some expert to tell me because these experts don’t know what they’re talking about anyway. They can’t run the economy, they can’t prevent the disease from spreading to begin with, so what makes me want to believe them right now.”

Among the most widely believed Covid conspiracies is that the death rate of the virus has been “deliberately and greatly exaggerated”. Nearly 60 percent of respondents in Nigeria said this was definitely or probably true, along with more than 40 percent in Greece, South Africa, Poland and Mexico. About 38 percent of Americans, 36 percent of Hungarians, 30 percent of Italians and 28 percent of Germans felt the same.

Ramey said the situation was being amplified by social media.

He explained: “I definitely think social media is a part of it. If you think about this, prior to the internet, if you held, what we would call a conspiracy theory, even defining a conspiracy theory is a complex kind of thing, but what we would say conventionally is a conspiracy theory, like if you held a belief that the moon landing was fake or something like that, in order for people to know you had that belief, you would have to tell them and there is a lot of social pressure against that.

“If you reveal that you have these beliefs that are considered by the mainstream to be wacky, no one is going to talk to you about them. And that’s either going to lead you to hold those beliefs private, or it’s going to lead you to abandon them.

“But I think with social media now, you can find anyone around the world who shares your belief instantaneously, and then you can start tweeting amongst yourselves and then before you know it people are tweeting and Facebook posting and Instagramming and Snapchatting information that is highly inaccurate and the people who are doing it are, in many cases, are unknowing; in many cases they don’t even know that what they’re peddling is necessarily a conspiracy theory.

“The social media has really allowed, in my opinion, for faster information flow among these people with these theories. But it’s also allowed it to go viral and spread throughout the population in ways that we just wouldn’t have seen before.”

Outgoing US president Donald Trump

Early on in the pandemic spread, outgoing US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro both falsely claimed hydroxychloroquine could cure or prevent Covid-19, leading to mass poisonings and overdoses.

With attention now switching to the vaccine, and more outlandish conspiracies attached to its creation and implementation, Ramey admitted it was a concern to see leading public figures spreading misinformation.

“What happens when mainstream people cling onto these conspiracy theories is that it allows those beliefs to become legitimised. For example, in the broader anti-Vaxx movement, when Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey started going on CNN and saying that vaccines cause autism. They’re not medical professionals, but they’re respected members of the Hollywood community, they’re actors that people know and are familiar with, and people have some degree of trust that they’ve given to them.

“When Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey start saying this vaccine causes autism, it makes people feel that that set of beliefs is not kooky, that it’s a normal set of things to have.

Jim Carrey. Getty Images

“That’s why I think it’s especially dangerous and it’s even more dangerous when political leaders embrace these conspiracy theories as well, even to a small extent because then it suggests that people who really should be in the know, policy makers who are the ones who are managing this public health disaster, if they are buying in, even in the smallest part, to one of these conspiracy theories, it actually leaves huge chunks of the population to discredit them.”

Anti-vaxxers have called into question the time taken to develop the vaccines and have even suggested they are ways of controlling DNA and monitoring population movement.

As a result, there are real worries over vaccine hesitancy or outright refusal – especially because of these anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns.

Polls have shown many Europeans are unwilling to take the vaccine, which could impede efforts to beat the virus and reach widespread immunisation. In Italy, which became the epicentre of the virus in Europe earlier this year, fewer than 60 percent say they intend to have the jab. Enrico Sorti, head of Cremona’s intensive care unit, was one of the very first to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Nothing, he said, supports “the thesis that the path taken to arrive at the vaccine was less effective, less efficient and less prudent”.

Ramey said: “For these vaccines to be effective, you’re going to have to have a huge chunk, not 100 percent of the population, but 40-50 percent of the population is going to have to get inoculated and I don’t know, even if those doses are available, between the conspiracy theorists on the right and the left, it’s concerning to me that people might shy away as a consequence of this.”

Total of 700,000 have so far applied to take the vaccine in Saudi Arabia.

In the Middle East, however, this does not seem to be an issue. Kuwait’s Minister of Health Sheikh Dr Bassel Al-Sabah on Sunday lauded the high turnout of medical personnel and frontline workers at Kuwait Vaccination Centre since the start of the campaign earlier in the day. While a total of 700,000 have so far applied to take the vaccine in Saudi Arabia, said the Ministry of Health.

It is hoped the various vaccines being rolled out across the globe will see an end to coronavirus, but sadly it will not signal the demise of conspiracy theories. So much so that Ramey revealed he is seriously considering creating a university class just on the topic of conspiracy theories and the politics of misinformation.

He said: “I think that policy makers around the world should be trying to think about ways to combat misinformation. I think that just calling it misinformation and conspiracy theories and ridiculing people who believe in them, that’s not really the solution, that’s not going to get people to abandon these sets of beliefs. But rather to point out the actual problem with them, to actually fix the problem as opposed to turning it into an insult to somebody who’s different from oneself.”