OPINION: The latest report from The Disinformation Project, “Transgressive Transitions”, put me in mind of an article by British social scientist Michael Billig – long one of my favourite scholars – in the book Changing Conceptions of Conspiracy. The article’s title, “Anti-Semitic themes and the British far left: Some social-psychological observations on indirect aspects of the conspiracy tradition”, will give you a sense of the flavour.
This report from the independent New Zealand research group presents analysis of social media activity and developments around the speaking tour of Australia and, abortively, Aotearoa by Posie Parker (aka Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull). The report is deeply scary and uses objective data to hint at where on the slippery slope into mis/disinformation hell we currently find ourselves.
Mis/disinformation has become a popular topic in recent times, amplified through the arguments and doubts we saw play out from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Similarly, the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US were followed by a dramatic and international surge in the prevalence of conspiracies and mis/disinformation, but that’s not the start. The roots go much further back. Conspiracy and disinformation have been with us as long as we’ve been hating people.
Consider The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a book purporting to reveal a co-ordinated secret Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. It’s been circulating widely since at least the early 1900s, in spite of being repeatedly debunked.
One of the things many of these conspiracy theories, and much disinformation, have in common is a “Manichean” theme – constructing whatever the focal issue is as a battle between good and evil. Battles need foot soldiers and generals, and Billig noted that many conspiracy-revealers’ writings are characterised by a strong whiff of Messianic grandeur. Think, “I alone have seen the truth (because I am special) and I have an obligation to lift the veil from the eyes of the sheeple.”
The 9/11 terror attacks in the US also coincided with the rise of the internet, allowing those who previously had been lone conspiracy believers a virtual place to go to share their beliefs and have them affirmed by others.
Nowadays, we have a growing Wild West of social media platforms. The Disinformation Project describes the importation of content across platforms, and from beyond our notional national borders. This has been particularly pronounced in Covid times – a small number of overseas social media accounts driving much of the rhetoric.
In the Posie Parker case, that rhetoric is utterly repugnant. “Transgressive Transitions” argues that the trans community and their allies are the almost exclusive target du jour for online violent rhetoric. Counter-protester, Greens co-leader Marama Davidson, was a notable target of a massive spike in online hate that only Jacinda Ardern had previously experienced. How many of us were aware of the background of death threats aimed at Davidson and other counter-protesters? I wasn’t, and that’s because I don’t use Telegram, or Twitter, or the other platforms that interlink in this case study.
How do we get from individuals making decisions about their gender (or what gender even means) to battles for the soul and future of humanity? The report suggests that although events such as those surrounding Posie Parker’s visit are framed in terms of issues about gender, they also serve as an entry point into an otherwise hidden world strongly characterised by a much more general neo-Nazi ideology. Come for the gender wars, in the hope that you’ll stick around for the racism and misogyny.
This in turn hints at something political scientists and psychologists have known for decades: our attitudes to one social/economic issue don’t exist in a vacuum but are interconnected into a broader belief system. This is part of why shouting at people about climate change or trans rights doesn’t change what people think – climate change and, in this case, gender politics are part of an interconnected web of attitudes, and a change to one may depend on changes in others.
