https://www.wired.com/story/please-please-please-dont-mock-conspiracy-theories/
Please, Please, Please Don't Mock Conspiracy Theories
The 2020 election is a hurricane season of alleged conspiracies. Theory after theory has churned from the Democratic debates, the Iowa caucuses, and the Twitter goings-on of candidates’ supporters or alleged supporters. The recent theory that a Nigerian Twitter fan account for Pete Buttigieg was actually a sock puppet run by campaign staffer Lis Smith—it wasn’t—illustrates how quickly and easily conspiracy theories spread; the story was trending on Twitter mere hours after the initial allegation.
This case also illustrates the downstream consequences of laughter. Just as quickly as the theory emerged, a storm surge of snarky denials, Nigerian email scam jokes, and other can-you-believe-these-idiots eye rolls flooded social media.
For nonbelievers, “See conspiracy theory; mock” has become an ingrained response online—and we need to break the habit. The closer we get to the general election, the more conspiracy theories we’re bound to see. Making fun of them, however tempting it might be, is the worst possible reaction.
This is not a civility argument. For one thing, civility arguments are mostly bullshit rhetorical sleights-of-hand designed to shift focus from the substance of a critique to its tone. Nor is it a claim that false information is cool and fun and we should just shrug and say nothing, since who needs truth, Mike Bloomberg makes the best memes, and everything is terrible. Rather, it’s a warning that jokes about conspiracy theories are strategically ineffective. In fact, they’re likely to backfire and dump even more refuse into the already toxic political waters.
One problem is that making fun of something spreads that thing just as quickly as sharing it sincerely would. (See: Covid-19 conspiracies.) The theory in question might be a bizarro-world fever dream. The person who shares that fever dream to mock it could have the best intentions; they might assume that showing the absurdity of the theory will help prevent others from taking it seriously. But as a previous article in this series explained, the information ecology doesn’t give a shit why anyone does what they do online. Sharing is sharing is sharing.