If you have been to any extended family get-together in the last five years, you probably already know that two people who are related to each other can have such different ideas about what’s happening in the world that you may wonder if they live in two alternative universes (which, if that is true, means the only time they share the same reality is when they enter the cross-dimensional portal that is Grandma’s house).
Unfortunately for facts everywhere, your relatives are not living in separate universes. The reason a lot of people now disagree about reality is because the internet and TV news are full of biased information, conspiracy theories, and flat-out lies, and it is getting harder and harder to tell them from the facts.
So, assuming you want all of us to live in one shared reality, how can you tell the difference between facts, lies, biased information, and conspiracy theories?
First, let’s define what they are.
Facts
Facts are statements of information that describe something that happened, or that describe something that happens over and over so regularly that you can depend on it happening again. For example, it is a fact that John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence. Anyone can see his signature on the document and a bunch of witnesses watched him sign it and they left records. It is also a fact that cardinals (the birds, not the baseball players) eat seeds. Anyone with a birdfeeder can see they do this and can depend on the cardinals coming back to the feeder to eat again, as long as the feeder is full of seeds.
Lies
Everyone knows what a lie is. It is a statement of made-up information that the speaker knows is false but tries to convince you is true. People typically lie to:
Get out of trouble.
Get you to do something that benefits the liar, but probably doesn’t benefit you.
Make you think the liar is cooler or more important than they actually are.
Mess with your mind because they think that is fun.
Biased Information
Biased information is when someone shares a few handpicked facts but leaves crucial facts out that you need to get the whole story. For example, let’s say that, for some bizarre reason, I decided I wanted to get everyone to hate dogs. So, I started a 24-hour news channel where I only reported stories of dogs being bad. My channel shows videos of dogs biting people, dogs chewing holes through walls, and dogs pooping all over the place, followed by commentators implying or telling you that dogs are pure evil. My channel, called CAT News (“CAT” stands for “Canines Are Terrible”), never reported any of the stories of dogs excitedly greeting their family every time they came home, or dogs making people laugh by chasing their tail, or any of the other ways that dogs make people’s lives better. That would be biased information because CAT News is only showing you the part of the picture that makes you hate dogs.
News sources, politicians, and people you know who give you biased information typically do so because:
They really believe something is true and they don’t want you to hear any facts that might make you (or them) realize their belief might not be true.
Like liars, they are hiding that they, or someone they are in cahoots with, is doing something wrong.
Also like liars, they want you to believe something that will benefit them in some way and don’t want you to realize it might not benefit you.
They realize that most people don’t want to know how complicated the world is, so they tell their audience only the things their audience wants to hear and never say anything that challenges their audience’s worldview. This makes their audience more likely to like the source of biased information, because the source doesn’t make them feel uncomfortable. Then, hopefully, the audience will vote for the source of biased information (if the source is a politician) or stick around to watch the commercials (if the source is a 24/7 cable news channel).
Conspiracy Theories
Like lies, conspiracy theories are made-up stories. Unlike liars, the people who spread conspiracy theories believe that the made-up things that they are telling you are true. Conspiracy theories tend to be much more elaborate than your average lie because they’re mainly an attempt to explain something that is happening in the world for those people who don’t want to believe the real explanation.
Conspiracy theories are not that hard to recognize if you know what to look for. Here’s some things that will help you identify them.
Conspiracy theories tell you that something everyone thinks is true is actually not true.
For example, we think the Earth is round, but conspiracy theory believers say it’s flat. Or we think beloved actor Tom Hanks is a nice human being, but conspiracy theory believers say he’s actually an evil vampire.
Conspiracy theories tend to blame everything on the actions of secretive evil groups.
For example, according to some conspiracy theories, the Illuminati is a secretive evil group who, apparently, have been running the world for centuries without any of us knowing about it.
Not all conspiracy theory secret evil groups have fun names like the Illuminati. Some of them are groups of people everyone has heard of. We just didn’t know they are secretly doing evil. For example, there are the scientists who conspiracy theorists say are secretly evil and making up climate change for fun and profit. (For a debunking of what conspiracy theorists say about climate change, read this blogpost that I wrote.)
Conspiracy theories are usually based on at least a couple of real facts, while conveniently ignoring all the other facts that show the conspiracy theory is ridiculous.
For example, conspiracy theorists who claim that vaccines cause autism will point to facts like how the rise in the number of people who have been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum coincides with the increased use of vaccines, or how the drug thalidomide that was used in the 1950s was proven to cause serious birth defects, which shows that medical products can have devastatingly harmful side effects. For these conspiracy theorists, these two actual facts prove that all vaccines must be bad.
But they completely ignore or deny other facts like:
Conspiracy theorists tend to like secret codes.
The proof for some conspiracy theories is the result of someone decoding a secret message. These secret messages may be found by looking at random numbers found in a document, by symbolic images in paintings, by writing down the 3rd letter of every other word in a document, or some other convoluted method. For example, let’s say the secret code is uncovered by writing down the 3rd letter of every word in the sentence: “Now, log all your hours, please, you slacking Instagram star.” The secret code letters end up being “wgluuauasa.” That of course means nothing. But then the conspiracy theorist decides that those letters actually stand for other letters. They come up with another code that shows that “wgluuauasa” is actually two words “wgluu auasa,” which stand for “smell alpaca.” And that obviously means the Illuminati is planning to make us all smell like alpacas! Thank goodness we figured out the secret code.
A recent real example of using secret codes to prove a conspiracy theory comes from the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I’ve heard of so far, the QAnon conspiracy theory. Basically, this theory says that a bunch of well-known politicians and Hollywood celebrities are all members of a satanic cult who eat children for energy because cheeseburgers and Twix bars just don’t do it for them. The theory also says that the only person currently fighting these people is Donald Trump. Some of the people who believe this theory say Trump was communicating about the conspiracy to the public by purposely misspelling words in his Tweets. The misspelled words are actually a secret code (see the footnote below for a source for this). For example, a famous misspelled word in a Trump tweet is “covfefe.” What does “covfefe” mean? It means “smell alpaca” (Just kidding. What “covfefe” really means is Donald Trump did not proofread his tweets before he posted them.).
Of course, if the QAnon conspiracy was really real, Trump could have just told everyone all the horrible things the celebrity vampires were doing and then we would all know about it and could work together to stop them (because who in their right mind wants vampires running our country and winning Oscars?), but that would spoil all the conspiracy theory fun (I’ll explain the “fun” part a little later in this blog post).
Conspiracy theories act like it is possible for a small group of humans to have a perfectly thought-out and executed plan that changes the entire world. And also that all those people are capable of keeping a secret.
For conspiracy theories to work, the secretive evil groups that are in charge have to be amazingly competent. They have to come up with a plan that foresees every obstacle and complication and includes steps to overcome each of these problems, and then everyone on the team from the leaders to the janitors has to perfectly execute the plan. All conspiracy team members also have to be really good at keeping secrets so that no one outside the group ever learns about the conspiracy.
Anyone who has ever worked with an actual group of people knows its really hard for a group of people to completely agree on anything, much less come up with a plan that predicts everything random chance throws their way. It’s also really hard to get a group of people to keep a secret (or even one person, for that matter). A good indication that something is a conspiracy theory is that it’s obvious that it has to be run by superhumans in orders to work.
So, conspiracy theories are ridiculous in more way than one. This is not to say that conspiracies do not happen.
They do. For example, in the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon secretly had his cronies break into the Watergate Apartment building to steal documents they hoped to use to damage the Democratic party. Nixon’s team did such a crummy job of it, though, that everyone knew about the conspiracy within a couple years. The good news for us about real conspiracies is that humans are too imperfect to be able to pull them off for very long without the rest of us finding out
If conspiracy theories are so obviously ridiculous, why do so many people believe in them?
Here are a couple thoughts on that.
Conspiracy theories are fun.
As someone who has read more than his share of superhero comics, I get some of the appeal of conspiracy theories. The QAnon conspiracy and the Illuminati definitely have something in common with the band of supervillains in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants secretly mind-controlling Jean Grey so they can destroy the X-Men and then take over the universe. Superhero stories and conspiracy theories both create fantastical worlds of good vs. evil, where the good (in a conspiracy theory’s case, the good are the people who believe in the conspiracy theory) fight the evil supervillains to save the world. Conspiracy theory people think that the simple worlds that exist in comic books and movies exist in the real world too, except they don’t. It’s much more complicated in the real world.
Conspiracy theories give you someone else to blame for your problems.
For almost every human on the planet, life is simultaneously an obstacle course, a maze, and a competition. It’s hard for most people to reach their dreams and that can make people feel bad about themselves. No one likes to feel bad. Conspiracy theories give people the opportunity to believe that “The reason I never got on American Idol is because the government faked the Moon landing.” If you can convince yourself of something like that, you no longer have to feel like your life situation is your fault.
Conspiracy theories also make people feel justified in hating the people they already hate. A lot of people hate other groups of people for looking different or having different opinions from the haters. People don’t want to feel bad about their unjustified hatred, though. Conspiracy theories tell believers that the people they hate are pure evil. This allows conspiracy theory believers to enjoy their hatred guilt-free.
Conspiracy theories even make believers feel superior to other people. “I may not be able to get a job or a date, but at least I know the government is spreading mind-control drugs through the contrails of commercial jets. That makes me smarter than everyone else.” Believing nonsense is another way to build self-esteem without too much effort.
Ultimately, conspiracy theories fulfill some basic human needs.
Conspiracy theories make believers feel like they matter, which is harder and harder to do when each of us is one drop in an ocean of about 8 billion people. Conspiracy theories also make people feel there is a way to change the world that will make it a better place. In a way, conspiracy theories are kind of hopeful, because you get to believe that, if we just get rid of the Illuminati, the world will be great!
Why should we even worry about conspiracy theories? Shouldn’t we just get to believe whatever we want to believe?
Conspiracy theories are not true and the people who believe conspiracy theories are not living in reality. But, so what? Aren’t conspiracy theorists just harming themselves and no one else?
Unfortunately, no. These believers end up making decisions that harm everyone.
For example, there are a lot of people in the United States who believe conspiracy theories about Covid-19. Some think that the numbers of cases and deaths that have been reported are greatly exaggerated. Some think the entire thing is a hoax and that, apparently, all the world’s governments, medical professionals, and the majority of its people have conspired together to pretend that a global pandemic is killing a lot of people all over the world, because we all have nothing better to do. Because these American conspiracy theorists do not believe that Covid-19 is a disease to be taken seriously, they refused to take the basic precautions that prevent the further spread of Covid, like wearing a piece of cloth over their nose and mouth when they’re grocery shopping or getting a vaccine that would help end the pandemic. The result has been that the United States had almost 600,000 people die from Covid in one year. So much needless suffering could have been prevented if more people believed that experts have been telling the truth about the pandemic.
So, knowing the difference between facts and nonsense can be a matter of life and death. But even when it’s not a matter of life or death, it’s still important. If we don’t all agree on the facts, we can’t do anything as a society to improve things. We waste all of our time arguing whether a problem exists, rather than working on solutions to fix the problem.
So how can we keep people from believing lies, biased information, and conspiracy theories?
Unfortunately, it won’t be easy. It would probably require rebuilding our society into one that values all people, so everyone feels like they matter. We would also need to help every person acquire the courage, self-respect, honesty, and knowledge to be able to face reality. Everyone would also need to learn how to accept that the world is complicated, and that bad things can happen to people for no good reason, so we don’t have such a desperate need to blame other people for our problems. You and I alone aren’t going to be able to pull any of that off, so what can individuals do to detect and avoid lies, biased information, and conspiracy theories?
It’s not an exact science, but here is what I do.
Don’t get your news from TV news channels or TV news shows that have commercials.
This may sound like a surprising suggestion. After all, TV is the way most Americans (or at least most older Americans) get their news. But hear me out. The main purpose of most TV news is not to tell you the news. It is to get you to watch the commercials, because that is how the TV channel make its money. TV news doesn’t want to tell you anything which might be boring or hard to understand, because you might turn to a different channel. Most of the big things happening in the world involve information and ideas that are outside our common knowledge, meaning we need to put some mental effort into understanding them. TV news avoids sharing that kind of complicated information because it’s not entertaining enough. They are more likely to report how a bunch of bystanders feel about something that happened than they are to help us understand the context and nuances behind this news event.
TV news also tries to avoid making their audience feel uncomfortable (which is not the same thing as making people angry. TV news loves making people angry, because anger is exciting, and it keeps you watching). They don’t want to tell their audience things that might challenge the audience’s beliefs. Instead, they make sure their audience only hears things they agree with. For example, if most of the audience for a news channel believes that vaccines are bad, the news channel will be sure to never report anything that might show this belief is wrong.
This is not to say that TV news doesn’t ever report real news. They do. It’s just not worth wading through all the blather and one-sided views to get those snippets of accurate information.
Don’t get information from social media.
In the early 2000s, we didn’t have millions of people believing in conspiracy theories. That’s because Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, SnapChat, TikTok, Reddit, and other social media platforms didn’t exist yet to spread conspiracy theories around. Before social media, people who believed in conspiracy theories were like that bearded guy Murray on Stranger Things. There was about one conspiracy theory guy per town and pretty much nobody took them seriously (though real Murrays rarely helped save entire towns from inter-dimensional monsters). Then the internet came along, and all those lonely conspiracy theory guys found each other online and ganged up. And then social media came along and made it easier for conspiracy guys to recruit other people to believe their wacky theories (for an explanation of how the algorithms of social media platforms favors conspiracy theories over accurate information, watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix). People do share real news stories on social media, but, like TV news, you aren’t getting enough accurate or unbiased information there to make it worth your while to trust what is shared.
Be careful about which websites you read and which YouTube videos you watch.
The internet allows pretty much anyone to write anything they want on it anonymously. Unfortunately, a lot of the people writing on the internet have no idea what they are talking about it. The result is the internet is filled with wrong information. It’s basically about as trustworthy and as well-spelled as the graffiti in a public bathroom.
That last sentence is a bit of an exaggeration. There are trustworthy sites on the internet. To find them, you need to look at who made the website or the video first, as that will help you decide if you can trust it. I trust information from organizations that follow the traditional rules of accuracy and fairness. The websites and YouTube videos I look at are made by colleges and universities, scientists, nationally respected museums like the Smithsonian, government agencies like NASA, and respected magazines and newspapers like National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. These organizations base their reputations on sharing facts, so there is more at stake for them if they tell us something wrong. They’re not always perfect. They’re run by humans, so they do sometimes make mistakes and sometimes show bias in their reporting, but, overall, they are trustworthy.
Read more than one source of information.
Since even the most trustworthy news organization in the world can sometimes make mistakes and/or be biased, it’s a good idea to see how other news sources are reporting the topic. If there are differences in what they are saying, then you know that you may not be getting the entire story from one or both of them. The good news is, if one reporter makes a mistake or purposely misleads people, other reporters will figure it out and make sure the mistake is corrected. This ecosystem of truth keeps us from being lied to for too long (though, sometimes, the “too long” can take years). And it works, because the vast majority of human beings want to do the right thing (though, that gets complicated too because we don’t all agree what the “right things” are. Also, the same capacity for denial that exists within the human brain that allows people to believe that UFOs regularly abduct people and the government covers it up, also allows some people who do horrible things to believe they are doing the right thing).
Unfortunately, if your uncle believes the world is flat, climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic are hoaxes, and Tom Hanks eats children for breakfast, if you provide a synopsis of this blog post to him, there’s a good chance he will tell you that you are the one who has been lied to and/or brainwashed (because he really doesn’t want to come to terms with the fact that these things he believes are about as likely to be true as this story that I heard in high school that Mikey, this kid in a cereal commercial that was on TV when I was a kid, had blown up because he ate Pop-Rocks while drinking soda). But if more people who are reasonable do these things, it can prevent our society from further moving into the Land of Make-Believe.
I wanted to wrap-up with a memorable slogan, like “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute” or “Loose Lips Sink Ships”, that could remind everyone to seek facts and avoid misinformation. Unfortunately, these were the best I came up with:
Demand facts, so truth doesn’t fall though the cracks.
Spreading bunk means your brain has probably shrunk.
Only turds repeat untruthful words.
I’ll leave it up to you if you ever dare utter one of these slogans to another human being or not.
If you would like to learn more about how to avoid misinformation and disinformation, here are some other places to check-out who are much less flippant than me (and some of them have teaching resources for educators):
(Also, here’s that footnote) So click here to see a clip from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah about people who say Trump’s misspelled tweets are a secret code about the QAnon conspiracy. Unfortunately, it’s not the most kid appropriate thing I’ve linked to on here.