Conspiracies, Fake News and False Scientific Information

 

When the Royal Society of Edinburgh announced they were hosting an online event called Conspiracies, Fake News and False Scientific Information a tsunami and earthquake combined could not have kept me away. As with the Media Society's similar event, Crazy Conspiracy Theories, a Threat to Democracy? Should the UK and US Media Respond?, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2020/12/crazy-conspiracies-theories-event.html, I felt somebody on our side of the debate had a duty to attend, simply to "show the flag" and not let it be dominated by nodding heads. Here's another past event that is not quite so bad: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/04/mick-west-webinar.html. Unfortunately this time Colin Woolford couldn't get there. The RSE is a registered charity set up in 1783 as an academy of science and letters. I was not surprised to find that one name appeared at this event that was also at the Media Society one, Marianna Spring. Well, she is that ultimate real life O'Brien, the Specialist Disinformation and Social Media Reporter for BBC News... Yuck! The chairman's name was James Naughtie, who presents Today on Radio 4. So that's two of the four panellists working for the British Brain-buggering Corporation. The other two were Prof. Linda Bauld, a public health expert at the University of Edinburgh, and Peter McColl, member of the RSE's "Post-Covid Futures Commission"... LOL. Prof. Bauld lamented how there is so much fear of vaccines because too many people believe "misinformation" and take the word of "selective scientific" pundits and anecdotes; and they live in echo chambers where they distrust science and their view becomes distorted. Peter McColl compared today's world with that about a hundred and twenty years ago when the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was published, see here for details: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/02/marlon-solomon-live-in-oxford.html. He says conspiracy theories emerge in society whenever there is lots of inequality and anxiety. The solution is to build a more stable and equal society. Marianna Spring brings up a recurring subject, the role of social media. She thinks social media should have more power to control information, not less. They should do the opposite of my own advice, signing Section 230, and in fact positively declare themselves as publishers. The most extreme speaker was James Naughtie. He talked about how conspiracy theorists are often grifters who say what they know is not true, just to get money out of their followers. He calls QAnon "extremism that spreads like wildfire!" I put in a question: "But mainstream media now says C19 may well have come from Wuhan Institute of Virology! This is a year after we were "fact checked" for saying that." The panel did answer my question, but they didn't address my point properly, that there is no discussion about the factual validity of so-called conspiracy theories. Mzzzzzzz Spring had to leave halfway through because she had to appear on Newsnight! Here's an example of her worldly wisdom: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-54738471. (Kate Shemirani is actually a heroic individual who has risked everything to warn the public.) I'm glad I attended this event, just out of principle like I said above, but it was all very tedious and unoriginal. It was almost indistinguishable from the previous Media Society talk; full of rhetoric, moral blackmail and smears, and absent of factual questioning. I had actually intended this review to be longer and I made a lot of notes, but I don't think there's much point expanding on what I've written here. If the recording becomes available I'll post it here: (coming soon perhaps).
See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2017/05/ditch-tin-foil-hat.html.
And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/02/rob-brotherton-and-psychology-of.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2017/07/are-conspiracy-theorists-losers.html.
And: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/09/prof-karen-douglas-at-greenwich-sitp.html.