Sunset

LOOK! NO GOD!

Conspiracy

Social media inadvertently contribute to the spread of conspiracy theories and disinformation by flooding the reader with supporting information and discouraging consideration of alternative views. This is not a new thing: society has always done the same thing with religion.

Back to the Home Page

Social media magnates aren’t trying to make us think a certain way; they are just trying to make money. They make their money through advertising and the more adverts we see, the more money they make.

So they have a vested interest in keeping us on their platform and looking at as many pages as possible. They do this by feeding us pages that they think we are most likely to be interested in. If I take an interest in the faking of the moon landing or the flat earth, their algorithms will feed me suggestions of other conspiracy theory pages. If I look at them, I will get more conspiracy theory pages and so on. Eventually, much of what I see will be conspiracy theories.

Man looking at phone

Getting heaps of information from lots of sources telling me about chemtrails, QAnon, Pizzagate, the hoax of climate change, rigged elections and so on, and nothing countering them could easily lead me to the view that this is what most people think and that it must be right. I will find it difficult to see how anyone can think differently given the huge amount of material in support of the views. I will assume that those other people who do think differently are either stupid or wilfully blind. I won’t want to be influenced by the views of the stupid and wilfully blind, so I won’t listen to them, or at least I will assume that everything they say on the issues is either misguided or a lie. This is what is happening to so many people and why conspiracy theories have become almost mainstream since the advent of social media.

Modern society is being increasingly driven and directed by disinformation – disinformation which becomes widely accepted as the truth. My views are formed by the input of ideas I receive, and what I accept as the truth depends on who is most successful at getting their ideas into my head. What is actually the case is irrelevant.

This is seen by many as a problem with the way social media works and is often seen as a problem of the modern technological age. But religion has always worked the same way. If everyone around me agrees that Islam is the truth and constantly tells me why and tells me that anyone who rejects it is either stupid or wilfully ignorant (and therefore evil and on the path to hell!), then I will find it hard to conceive of how anyone could think differently. I will follow the crowd.

Add to that the fact that, if I think differently, I could be shunned (or worse) in this life, and I am very unlikely to go any way other than the way my society leads me. The same will be true if I am in a Hindu society, a Mormon society, an atheist society or a Christian society. We adopt the beliefs of those around us. What is actually the case is irrelevant.

If Israelis and Palestinians all based their views on humanity and fairness rather than a belief that God has given them an exclusive right to the country, the fighting would come to an end. While both sides believe that they have God-given exclusive and inalienable rights to the whole of the land, and that no human consideration should have priority over God’s decree, then the only hope of an end to the conflict will be if one side is totally eliminated in an act of genocide.

Nuclear attack

Such is the wonder of religion.

Top of this page          Home Page

Image Acknowledgements

Man on phone: Freerange Stock

Nuclear attack: DEVDES-LPZ on DeviantArt