Truth and trolling

What I learned about conspiracy theorists when my talk on conspiracy theories hit YouTube

A couple of weeks ago, my TEDx talk on what the science of uncertainty tells us about human nature was uploaded to YouTube. But this wasn’t the title it had when first posted. At the last minute, YouTube editors had changed the title from the planned one to ‘Why do conspiracy theories go viral?’

Although this wasn’t the most accurate title, and it was later changed back, it did create an interesting natural experiment¹ – an opportunity to understand why people engage so much with conspiracy theories.

So, what did I discover?

The seekers of truth

As the comments started arriving below the video, many focused on the flawed idea that because some past conspiracy theories turned out to be true (alongside the many that are false) it is rational to assume conspiracy theories are generally true:

• Because most of them become true over time? ;)

• Bc most turn out to be true

• Almost all "conspiracy theories" over the last 4 years have been totally accurate. Remember the covid fiasco ! ?

• Question: "what is the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth ?"

  Answer : "About 6 months."

• WE DONT NEED TO STOP THEM.

  MOST TURN OUT TO BE TRUE!!!!

• Typically because they hold some truths. Sometimes they are completely true.

In the talk itself, I mentioned the appeal of searching for explanation and truth:

In some ways, conspiracy theorists are similar to scientists. They want to explain the patterns they see in the world, and they want to share those explanations with others. And they’ll put a lot of effort into doing so.

But the idea that all conspiracy theories are true, or that a small group of theorists are the only who see the whole truth about the world, is what separates it from science, in which theories are overturned, and hypotheses discounted. As I put it in the talk:

The key difference, though, is that good science frequently requires us to update our beliefs about the world, rather than just double down on them. The point of evidence is to get us closer to the truth, not pull us further into our theory.

The value of scepticism

Other comments suggested that conspiracy theorising is valuable as a form of scepticism:

• Why do you want to stop conspiracy theorist they challenge the status quo helps the collective to question things.

• Because “experts” have lied to them so much that they figure they’ll just trust their own understanding.

Many scientific breakthroughs have arisen from questioning assumptions and challenging established beliefs. After all, the Royal Society has the motto ‘Nullius in verba’. Still, there’s a risk in harboring too much blanket doubt. While scepticism can protect us from falling for misinformation, excessive doubt can lead people to discount allevidence and instead rely on other proxies, like emotions or political biases. A recent systematic review of news consumption found people tended to be over-sceptical rather than over-credulous. As the authors put it:

there is more room to increase the acceptance of true news than to reduce the acceptance of fact-checked false news.

Sixty-year-old origins

Some comments under the video turned to history, and the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in particular:

• ‘Conspiracy Theories’ idea started with JFK’S ASSASSIN by CIA, because those of us refused to be SHEEP

• Isn't it amazing how many conspiracy theories turn out to be true? Conspiracy theorists is a term coined by the CIA to denigrate people who were questioning The Warren Report after the JFK assassination.

Although the CIA didn’t coin the term ‘conspiracy theory’², it did help popularise the negative connotations of the term in the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. As public scepticism of the official narrative (i.e. The Warren Report) grew, the CIA circulated a memo (Document 1035-960) encouraging operatives to discredit critics by labeling them ‘conspiracy theorists’. While the memo didn’t reach the public at the time, its later release has fueled claims that there’s a broader effort to undermine dissent – especially when it challenges institutional authority. It’s therefore understandable this would be cited as evidence that there is a conspiracy against conspiracy theorists, and authority cannot always be trusted.

Despite the multitude of alternative theories about the JFK assassination, no clear consensus has ever emerged to overturn the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was solely responsible. In general, the theories out there just have too much implausible complexity and too many contradictions. The recent release of new documents relating to the assassination has not changed this, despite being highly anticipated.

Pure trolling

Not everyone pushes conspiracy theories because they think they’re true. As one comment suggested, theories can also be a form of trolling:

• We are smarter than you.

  Shocking for you, I know.

  We can make CNN broadcast a story we made up down the pub.

A few years ago, Renee DiResta wrote a piece describing how disinformation is strategically spread. The media has long been a key target in this process:

In the quaint old days when KGB spies deployed the tactic, the goal was pickup by a major media property, because that provided legitimization and took care of distribution.

I’ve previously written about the ‘manipulation game’ in online content. Certain groups understand online contagion much more than others, and some bad actors have got very good at seeding and spreading falsehoods.

Theories about theorists

The response to the video wasn’t just about conspiracy theories, it was about what people were really looking for in a chaotic world. For some, it was about possessing hidden truths. For others, it was about resisting official narratives. And for a certain group, it was about performance – a way of showing intelligence, rebellion, or just playing a game to see what sticks.

This is what makes the science of uncertainty – the actual topic of the talk – so important. Why do people seeks explanations in some situations but not others? What builds, and breaks, trust in evidence? In a world that often feels imbalanced and out of control, we should look not just at what people believe, but also at why they believe it.

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If you’re interested in evidence, truth, trust and misinformation, you’ll probably like my new book Proof: The Uncertain Science of Certainty.

1. It’s also a good example of ‘don’t blame the writer for the headline’.

2. The first mentions of the term appeared in the 1800s.