ArgumentsFirehosing: The Systemic Strategy that Anti-Vaxxers Are Using to Spread Misinformation

Last week, Bill Maher hosted Jay Gordon, a controversial doctor who peddles misinformation about vaccines. Lucky Tran writes in the Guardian that the 14-minute interview, Gordon repeated all the misleading and dangerous views anti-vaxxers promote: highlighting discredited work on vaccines and autism, disingenuously labelling measles a benign illness, and questioning a vaccine schedule that has been proven safe and effective by decades of research.

Tran writes that as is the case with many who work in science and medicine, he is exasperated. “How does this keep happening? Why do people keep giving snake-oil salesmen a microphone?” he asks. “The answer to all my questions is simply that lying works,” Tran writes.

Tran adds:

Ever heard of “firehosing”? It’s a relatively new term coined by Rand researchers Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews in 2016 to describe the propaganda tactics Russian authorities use.

What does this have to do with anti-science talkshows? So far, the concept of firehosing has only been applied to political propaganda. But I think there are many lessons here for those tracking areas of science denial such as vaccines and climate crisis.

Firehosing relies on pushing out as many lies as possible as frequently as possible. That’s typical for propaganda, but the aspect that makes firehosing a unique strategy is that it doesn’t require the propagandist to make the lies believable. That seems counterintuitive, but as Carlos Maza of Vox explains, firehosing is effective because its goal isn’t to persuade. It’s to rob facts of their power. Firehosing inundates us with so many wild opinions that it becomes exhausting to continually disprove them. In this scenario, reality is reduced to positioning and who can sell their position best.

“The strategy is effective for those trying to hold on to political power, and it’s the same for those who gain power from engaging in science denial,” Tran writes.