You should read up on the Leicester Method.
I have no opinion one way or the other, but it seems to me, that rather than malleable minds being "influenced" by propaganda, it is a natural reaction to being "told" what to think.
Pro vaccine advocates, come across much the same as modern atheists, or rust users - vehemently proselytising their views, with little regard to the fears, concerns, or opinions of others. This naturally rubs people the wrong way, especially if one is predisposed to contrarianism.
It's the same fallacy as with the "Russian Bots" election conspiracy. Just because you can create lots of content, doesn't mean you can make people watch it.
You absolutely can make people watch it, even side with it passionately to where they'll burn through their friends requiring loyalty to the information bubble. It's a matter of statistics, and directing the contents of the information bubble with reasonable effectiveness. It's a bit like nuclear fusion: sort of 'wait, these lumps of metal do THAT?!?'
Yes, in fact they do. And, yes, you can direct HUMANITY to whatever ends you like, including 'The USA should be torn to bits by civil war please, so it is no longer a rival superpower'. Plenty of people out there would find that useful, wouldn't even have to be exceptionally short-sighted. Mind you, it's still damn reckless even if it is not absolutely short-sighted.
I'm not forced to open phishing emails but sometimes I do by accident or carelessness. I'm also not forced to open links someone close or not happen to send my way. I'm not forced to read weird facts-denying delusional rants on social media but sometimes I stumble upon it while scrolling around a main page.
Given the unlimited torrent of propaganda and manipulated content that we are exposed constantly and is designed precisely to control you to serve the manipulator's goals, what should we do?
Hell, just open a tab with any of the facts-denying extremist media channels that currently plague the US. Do you believe they are preaching to fishes, or that there are people exposed and manipulated by it?
This is just hand-wavy fearmongering about "mass psychology"
How exactly do you think antivaxers became antivaxers? They weren’t born like that, they were exposed to propaganda and eventually fell for it.
I know several wonderful, educated and otherwise reasonable people, who have fallen for antivaxing, antimask, covid-is-a-lie conspiracies. This includes two teachers in the public school system. The same people who are supposed to teach critical thinking to the next generation. Think about what that means for a moment.
Propaganda works. Stopping propaganda, highlighting “fake news”, debunking conspiracies, and teaching critical thinking is essential.
You are mixing things together that don't belong together. Covid is very new and scientific discussion is still ongoing. There is no consensus. Anti-vaxxers are about tried and proven vaccines they don't trust.
I think as with other things (like religion), people get mostly "infected" by their peer group. Also there are certain aspects that make memes prevail, like fear and protectiveness of one's own children in the case of vaccines. It's not simply a matter of exposure to YouTube videos.
But they do belong together, don't they? I mean, they are all under attack by facts-denying militant groups fueled by anti-intellectual propaganda.
> Covid is very new and scientific discussion is still ongoing. There is no consensus.
That's no excuse to intentionally deny facts and information already established on the disease. And no, just because a militant group actively denies and rejects facts that doesn't make them disputed nor does it means there is no consensus.
> It's not simply a matter of exposure to YouTube videos.
This is not about youtube or twitter or sneaker net. This is about people actively disseminating and consuming propaganda and disinformation. The shit is the same even if you switch spoons.
No, that is just a strategy of defamation that you fell for. Basically the "Hitler was a vegetarian" argument against vegetarianism. In short, "a person of type x believes y" does not imply "everybody who believes y is a person of type x".
" And no, just because a militant group actively denies and rejects facts that doesn't make them disputed nor does it means there is no consensus."
If you would watch more YouTube, you would be aware that it is not only "militant groups" who argue about aspects of Covid.
"This is about people actively disseminating and consuming propaganda and disinformation."
There are such people on all sides.
There was undeniable steep gradient towards extremism, how it worked on me in particular is irrelevant. It is a numbers game.
The propaganda by totalitarian states is an entirely different beasts, it reaches into all walks of life.
I'm more worried about the censorship leading to totalitarian states than extremist YouTube channels.
Nobody is “forced” to watch a YT video. But if these show up in searches, along with pseudo-scientific articles, pseudo-documentaries on all platforms and actively work on becoming viral, then there is a problem.
Maybe creating a lot of content does not imply that people will watch it, but the reality is that a lot of people do.
And by evidence I don't mean "hit pieces in traditional media that don't like the competition from social media".
Anti-vaxx movement was started by a bogus publication from a then reputable source. It was blown up by ease of information spread and exacerbated by the undermined confidence in traditional media. That much is known.
It takes basic knowledge of statistics to verify that those things are just random correlations, not causation (show that incidence of certain afflictions (like autism) is the same among vaccinated and non-vaccinated people). That is what the memes feed from. I don't think censoring would help much here, especially as most people know such stories personally. I don't know people directly, but I know people who know people who got sick after vaccination. I suspect many others do, too.
Granted, anecdotes spread especially well on Social Media. It works the other way round, too. Have you heard a story of somebody who almost died, or died, from Covid, despite being young and healthy? Such incidents are very rare, but since they get shared a lot, one such personal report may be shared by thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people. every one of them now feels like they "know" somebody who died from Covid despite of being young and healthy.
Should such stories also be banned, to ease the psychological burden (fear) on billions of people?
No, they are clearly different. One encourages dangerous behaviour for yourself and more importantly others around you, the other does not. This is also there is not much talk about banning flat earth or moon landing conspiracies out of social media.
> Where does a reasonable debate even begin with something like that?
Observe how your mind is drawn to the very most egregious examples of conspiracy theories, and conspiracy theorists, and then expands that into your conceptualization of the whole. Also observe your sense of omniscience ("They've got no scientific or reasonable leg to stand on...", demonstrating your perception that you've reviewed all the evidence and arguments from the community).
I believe that a reasonable debate first requires that all parties realize and acknowledge the illusory nature of consciousness, and in turn reality. But this seems to be an extremely unpopular idea, so we may be waiting a long time before we can have a reasonable debate.
With these things aside, the both sides mentality stops being applicable at a certain point. While one side can show you thousands of evidence that a certain cure does work, the other side shows one questionable example of it not working and it is enough for their believers. So as to answer the specific case with antivaxxers: I will not engage with such an argument because they in fact have no scientific leg to stand on automatically. For to have any meaningful debate, we would have to talk about a specific vaccine that may or may not be safe. If we have such a strong statement (in a mathematical sense) that ALL instance of something is a given property, is ought to not be true in a mathematical sense - and without understanding probabilities there is no point in arguing.
Agreed. However:
a) it is not necessary to accept these beliefs as epistemically flawless
b) it is possible (and useful) to be consciously aware that we have done this (as opposed to holding the perception that we know(!) these things)
> With these things aside, the both sides mentality stops being applicable at a certain point.
I'm not sure, so I will ask for clarification: do you believe I have asserted that both sides are equal, at the object level? I am pointing out their similarity at the abstract, neurological level, although perhaps that is lost in translation (but the more explicit one is, it seems the more offense is often taken)
> While one side can show you thousands of evidence that a certain cure does work, the other side shows one questionable example of it not working and it is enough for their believers
How confident are you that this belief is accurate? You realize that it is an intuitive belief, at least now that I point it out, right? (And I do not mean this in a snarky way, I mean it literally, and seriously, for reasons that may not be obvious).
> So as to answer the specific case with antivaxxers: I will not engage with such an argument because they in fact have no scientific leg to stand on automatically.
This suggests omniscience, on at least two levels. (I do not intend this in a snarky way either.)
> For to have any meaningful debate, we would have to talk about a specific vaccine that may or may not be safe.
There is no shortage of anti-vaxxers willing to have that conversation. Finding one that genuinely knows what they are talking about, that is another matter, but there are some very well read people among all the idiots.
> If we have such a strong statement (in a mathematical sense) that ALL instance of something is a given property, is ought to not be true in a mathematical sense - and without understanding probabilities [and epistemology] there is no point in arguing.
Does this apply to both sides of the disagreement? :)
I believe that a big part of the problem here (and the numerous other culture war arguments that are currently raging out of control) is that people tend to approach/discuss the issues from a strict object level perspective, and also that both parties tend to not be mindful that such discussions are fundamentally a neurological process, and therefore subject to all the flaws and fallacies inherent in any such undertaking (which seem to be heavily amplified in discussions that are indeterminate, and culture war based) [1].
I believe that if people really cared about optimizing outcomes on these issues as much as they proclaim/self-perceive that they do, they would be willing to take the steps that are necessary to do so, or at least consider the ideas. But alas, it seems to be a bit of an intractable, recursive/coordination problem. Maybe things will get better in 2021 - one should never give up hope!
[1] For example, if you go looking for it specifically, can you spot any omniscience (lack of self-awareness) in this thread (both in the noted anecdotes, as well as in the conversation itself)?: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25385833
A good example of this is flat earthers or anti vaxxers. They've got no scientific or reasonable leg to stand on, yet they publish so much unscientific garbage as to be garnering support. It will LOOK like they are more credible because the shear amount of garbage they push will go unresponded to by the other side. Meanwhile, they'll just simply ignore the other half of the argument. They refuse to address those points while making a ton of their own.
It gets worse. There's starting to be major bubbles of misinformation forming. So broad that the arguments made are almost impossible for the other side to decode. A great example of this is something like the comet pizza Q anon conspiracy. If you don't know, it goes something like this "A pizzeria in DC was a central location in a pedophile ring which the Clinton's had deep connections to."
Where does a reasonable debate even begin with something like that? It's easy enough to show that "No, that's crazy" Heck, even minimal rational thought should be enough to debunk this garbage. Yet it still flows (so much so that someone decided to show up armed to demand the pizzeria release the kids[1])
Yet, when a debate comes up, all a Q anon follower would pretty much have to say something like "Yeah and I bet you like comet pizza as well". That sort of attack would be devastating in the eyes of those already tuned into Q anon crap yet would be completely reasonable for an outsider to be like "Yeah, I like their pizza".
These techniques are effective which is evidenced by how much misinformation flows throughout the internet. Giving equal time and access to both sides doesn't appear to be effective in combating this misinformation. There's got to be a better way.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/22/533941689...