Conspiracy Theories: How Social Media Can Help Them Spread and Even Spark Violence
We found that social media can help breed a shared identity toward conspiracy theory radicalization by acting as an echo chamber for such beliefs. The core characteristics of social media play a critical role in building and reinforcing identity echo chambers. For example, they enable individuals to become increasingly committed to such theories through having an easy and persistent access to content that feeds their misconstrued beliefs. Such individuals can imagine themselves to be “real life investigators”, yet scour the Internet searching only for information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs.
Online networks also enable individuals to replicate conspiracy theories easily by simply sharing or copy/pasting related content. This information is therefore quickly visible to followers or members of a forum which can then be visible through hashtags and via algorithms that are used by some platforms. Our study identifies four key stages in the escalation of such conspiracy beliefs.
1. Identity confirmation: Users consult and view different types of content (via fora, mainstream media and social media) to actively verify and confirm their own views.
2. Identity affirmation: Individuals disassociate or pick selectively information from their original sources of information (mentioned above). In the case of “Pizzagate”, conspiracy-minded users took pictures from the Clinton Foundation’s support work in Haiti, created visual materials supporting supposed connections to a sex-trafficking ring, and then posted them on Reddit and 4chan. While obviously altered and taken out of context, the images were widely shared to promote the conspiracy theory.
3. Identity protection: Individuals safeguard their “informational environment” by actively seeking to discredit individuals or organizations that present contradictory evidence, for example with antagonistic or negative posts or comments.
4. Identity enactment: Individuals seek broader social approval from a more mainstream audience. This can also lead to efforts to recruit more people and call for violent actions, leveraging the community userbase.
These stages actually constitute a spiraling loop, reinforcing a conspiratorial shared social identity and enabling a potential escalation to radicalization.
Prevention, Not More Information
Our findings underline the need to rethink some of the current fact-based approaches, which have not only been proven to be ineffective, but that actually feed conspiratorial beliefs. Instead, we encourage policymakers to focus on prevention and support education.
More than ever, developing media literacy and critical-thinking skills that can help citizens assess the credibility and validity of online information sources has become a critical challenge. Those skills include analysis, synthesis, contrasting evidence and options to spot flaws and inconsistencies, among others.
It is also important to address the underlying social issues that can contribute to the spread of conspiracy theories. The reality of conspiracy-theory communities is that they often represent marginalized populations of our society – their very existence is made possible by social exclusion. Addressing social exclusion and promoting community values may also help combat the spread of conspiracy theories.
Christine Abdalla Mikhaeil is Assistant professor in information systems, IÉSEG School of Management. This article is published courtesy of The Conversation.
