The Internet of Junk

We all know one: people we imagined to be intelligent, or at least not idiots, who suddenly enter a downward spiral of believing conspiracy theories, unlikely news stories, revealing “studies” about things “we all know”, but which for some strange reason — like the views of a few “scientists” who dare to tell the truth — -never make it into the mainstream media (that’s because they’re part of a cover up). They constantly retweet a few accounts, sharing their content through all the means they can: Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal — “because WhatsApp censors us.” There’s no reasoning with them.

Pandemic? invented to control us, manufactured in a Chinese laboratory! Vaccines? a tool to force us to inject ourselves with suspicious components, or even chips! Facemasks? Not only are they useless, but they are an attack on our freedom… Chuck them in the garbage and get out on the street “unmuzzled”. It’s all part of a conspiracy, and only they have all the data to prove it. Studies showing low COVID death rates, that nobody’s wearing masks in school and there are no mass infections, that vaccines do not work and can give you COVID instead of preventing it, that PCR tests can be manipulated… once again, we’re being fed “the biggest lie ever told”.

They are methodical, systematic, constant: every day, there’s some new theory, some doctor, biologist or former top executive of a super-relevant company, who supposedly says something that supports their theories, that proves that they were right all along, and everyone else was wrong. You’re right to be suspicious of their persistence: these people follow schemes designed to spread disinformation. But surely, not your friend: they are simply ill-informed links in a chain. Yet in the United States, a documented report shows that, in reality, all these crazy theories originate from just a dozen or so accounts. And as said, if the social networks delete them, it is because they are “part of the conspiracy”.

It’s all about controlling the narrative, being the first to say something outrageous, and then making sure it is repeated enough times. A seemingly simplistic technique, but surprisingly, in the information age, it works. Precisely at the moment when, simply by making three or four clicks, you can verify that stupid things are stupid things, it turns out that, paradoxically, it is when more stupid things circulate.

What’s wrong with them? Why do they take pleasure in wallowing in informative garbage, in the kind sensationalism that under normal circumstances nobody would believe? What do they gain by spreading this kind of garbage? Why do they try to convince you of things that would have William of Occam slashing his wrists with his razor?

Social networks impact our sense of identity, feeding us with more of the same stuff that prompted an earlier reaction, and then with more of what makes our contacts react. A two-layered manipulation that makes our friends believe that not only are they in possession of absolute truths the rest of us ignorant of, but also that it’s their duty to evangelize the rest of us to “what’s really going on”.

It’s the internet of junk. The result of a few people figuring out how to poison, manipulate and, in some cases, convince others of just about anything, no matter how outlandish it may seem. So now we know: in every country, all but one known politician is engaged in a universal conspiracy financed by billionaires, to keep us all in the dark so that we will do as we’re told. Shocking!

Beware: it can happen to anyone. Our friends too, even if we once thought they were rational beings. This is the exploitation of well known social mechanisms, weaknesses of human nature. A pandemic is, for them, a screed. To make matters worse, if you try to offer an alternative view or simply question them, they’ll take it as a personal insult and bombard you with more junk, with more “I told you,” with more mind-blowing theories. It’s hard to get out of those downward spirals. Let’s be honest, some people are happy to be carried along by the maelstrom, even to the point of storming the Capitol and taking pictures to show how proud they are.

You might as well write these friends off for the next few years. They may come round to seeing sense, or perhaps you’ve lost them forever.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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