Why smart people believe coronavirus myths

(Image credit: Getty Images)

By David Robson 7th April 2020

From students to politicians, many smart people have fallen for dangerous lies spread about the new

coronavirus. Why? And how can you protect yourself from misinformation?

It is a sad truth that any health crisis will spawn its own pandemic of misinformation.

In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s we saw the spread of dangerous lies about Aids – from the belief that
the HIV virus was created by a government laboratory to the idea that the HIV tests were
unreliable, and even the spectacularly unfounded theory that it could be treated with goat’s milk.
These claims increased risky behaviour and exacerbated the crisis.

Now, we are seeing a fresh inundation of fake news – this time around the coronavirus pandemic.
From Facebook to WhatsApp, frequently shared misinformation include everything from what
caused the outbreak to how you can prevent becoming ill.

In past decades, dangerous lies spread about Aids which exacerbated the crisis (Credit: Getty Images)

(...)
At worst, the ideas themselves are harmful – a recent report from one province in Iran found
that more people had died from drinking industrial-strength alcohol, based on a false claim that it
could protect you from Covid-19, than from the virus itself. But even seemingly innocuous ideas
could lure you and others into a false sense of security, discouraging you from adhering to
government guidelines, and eroding trust in health officials and organisations.

There’s evidence these ideas are sticking. One poll by YouGov and the Economist in March 2020
found 13% of Americans believed the Covid-19 crisis was a hoax, for example, while a whopping
49% believed the epidemic might be man-made. And while you might hope that greater
brainpower or education would help us to tell fact from fiction, it is easy to find examples of many
educated people falling for this false information.

(...)

Even some world leaders – who you would hope to have greater discernment when it comes to
unfounded rumours – have been guilty of spreading inaccurate information about the risk of the
outbreak and promoting unproven remedies that may do more harm than good, leading Twitter
and Facebook to take the unprecedented step of removing their posts.  

Fortunately, psychologists are already studying this phenomenon. And what they find might
suggest new ways to protect ourselves from lies and help stem the spread of this misinformation
and foolish behaviour.

Information overload

Part of the problem arises from the nature of the messages themselves.

We are bombarded with information all day, every day, and we therefore often rely on our
intuition to decide whether something is accurate. As BBC Future has described in the past,
purveyors of fake news can make their message feel “truthy” through a few simple tricks, which
discourages us from applying our critical thinking skills – such as checking the veracity of its
source. As the authors of one paper put it: “When thoughts flow smoothly, people nod along.”

Eryn Newman at Australian National University, for instance, has shown that the simple presence
of an image alongside a statement increases our trust in its accuracy – even if it is only
tangentially related to the claim. A generic image of a virus accompanying some claim about a
new treatment, say, may offer no proof of the statement itself, but it helps us visualise the general
scenario. We take that “processing fluency” as a sign that the claim is true.

For similar reasons, misinformation will include descriptive language or vivid personal stories. It
will also feature just enough familiar facts or figures – such as mentioning the name of a
recognised medical body – to make the lie within feel convincing, allowing it to tether itself to our
previous knowledge.
Even the simple repetition of a statement – whether the same text, or over multiple messages – can
increase the “truthiness” by increasing feelings of familiarity, which we mistake for factual
accuracy. So, the more often we see something in our news feed, the more likely we are to think
that it’s true – even if we were originally sceptical.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200406-why-smart-people-believe-coronavirus-myths
Exercises

1. Find words in the text and match them with their meaning.

a) false or incorrect information, especially when it is intended to trick someone _________________

b) an occurrence of a disease that affects many people across the whole world ___________________
c) not supported with facts or evidences _________________
d) the sudden start of something (war, disease, etc) _______________
e) something intended to deceive or defraud people ________________
f) an excessive amount of something ______________
g) people who promote an idea, view, etc. ________________
h) not easily convinced, having doubts or reservations _________________

2. Answer the following questions.

2.1. Is “fake news” a recent phenomenon? Justify.

_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________

2.2. “Now, we are seeing a fresh inundation of fake news”

According to the text, what are the most mainstream means of spreading fake news
nowadays?
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________

2.3. Read the last paragraph of the text. In your opinion, why do people create and share
misinformation?
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________