{"id":1416,"date":"2022-05-02T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T09:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2022-05-07T08:23:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-07T07:23:21","slug":"sharing-bullshit-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/sharing-bullshit-on-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing bullshit on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s another dull day of commuting to work, and you are waiting for the bus. Bored, you open your phone and start scrolling the all-too-familiar, endless cascade of mildly uninteresting content posted by your friends on social media. And there it is, next to pictures of happy babies and pixelated dogs. A tik-tok video revealing that the Roman Empire never existed<\/a>. Montagnier\u2019s latest anti-vax rants<\/a>. Proof that eating pollen is the ultimate anti-aging cure<\/a> and that birds aren’t real<\/a>. Loads of bullshit.<\/p>\n

Why are social media so ripe with misinformation? Researchers have identified a number of potential culprits. Some point their finger to echo-chambers<\/a>. Others, to badly-designed algorithms<\/a> that feed us inflammatory content, rather than filtering it out. The truth is, the causes are numerous and complex. But between the many factors that play a role in this misinformation epidemic, there is one that has not received much press, despite the clear role it plays in the disinformation epidemic: the very existence of a \u2018repost\u2019 function on most social media platforms.<\/p>\n

The role that reposting plays in spreading misinformation may seem obvious. Reposts are the fuel without which content cannot go viral. In itself, some internet dude\u2019s rant about the latest conspiracy theory<\/a> can only reach a limited audience\u2013 as such, it\u2019s relatively inert and harmless. Not so much when other users start propagating it by reposting it. Reposts increase visibility, calling for other potential reposts, in \u2018cascades\u2019 that can reach millions of users.<\/p>\n

\u201cReposting cascades\u201d surely play a key role<\/a> in the spread of misinformation online, but this mechanism alone cannot explain why false<\/em> rumours thrive on social media. Reposts can help any <\/em>content reach wider audience. They can magnify someone\u2019s voice, but they do it regardless of whether they are telling the truth or spreading lies. If we want to explain why more false<\/em> content is accessible on social media (and not simply why more<\/em> content is available) we are still missing a piece of the puzzle. The answer resides in how reposts reshape the repertoire of communicative acts that we perform, altering the landscape in which online communication happens.<\/p>\n

Rumours and reposts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reposting is different from most other forms of communication. To understand what makes it particularly apt to spread misinformation, it can be useful to compare it to rumour-mongering. Both are by definition \u2018second-hand\u2019 reports. If you insincerely tell me that Lucy from accounting is dating Lucas, the hot guy from sales, you are simply lying. But if you tell me that you\u2019ve heard <\/em>that Lucy is dating Lucas, you are starting a rumour. A rumour, like a repost, involves communicating that someone else <\/em>has (supposedly) said something.<\/p>\n

When you are caught lying, you pay a toll: your reputation is stained, your credibility is damaged, and your friendship with the dupe might be in trouble. Rumour-mongering avoids (or at least reduces) some of these costs. If you are caught red-handed (Lucy is not dating anyone at the moment), you can always point out that you are not the one who claimed that Lucy is dating Lucas. All you said, after all, is that you have heard <\/em>that Lucy was dating Lucas \u2013 it\u2019s not your fault (you may argue, maliciously) if you got things wrong.<\/p>\n

Spreading gossip via rumours is advantageous precisely because you remain able to deflect accusations in this way, avoiding (or at least containing) the costs associated with spreading falsehoods and unverified claims. Donald Trump is a known abuser of this sneaky method: expressions like \u201ca lot of people are saying\u201d or \u201csome people think\u201d were ever-present in his political speeches<\/a>. They were obvious smokescreens, from behind which the former president would spout his favourite conspiracy theories and lies, while refusing to own to their authorship.<\/p>\n

The problem about reposting<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem with reposting is that it also comes with limited accountability. When you repost someone else\u2019s content, you don\u2019t really vouch for it yourself, taking responsibility for its truth. As the popular disclaimer has established ad nauseam,<\/em> a retweet is not an \u2018endorsement\u2019. Like a rumour, it is a sort of second-hand report. It directs attention towards content that someone else<\/em> has posted (and taken responsibility for). Linguists and philosophers have likened it to the act of pointing towards something, or quoting<\/a> what someone has said. It is the social media equivalent to indicating in some direction and saying \u201chey, check this out!\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like a rumour, a repost can help spread misinformation, while avoiding the cost traditionally associated with spreading falsehoods. If you are caught reposting fake news, it\u2019s not as bad as being caught lying. You can always make a case that all you did was sharing the article (\u201cdon\u2019t shoot the messenger, right?\u201d), but you did not mean to vouch for its truth.<\/p>\n

Trump, once again, illustrates this pattern egregiously. He has frequently retweeted conspiracy theories, fake news and blatantly false claims. Confronted publicly about his retweets, he\u2019s always brushed off the accusations with confidence. For instance, questioned about a retweet alleging that Marco Rubio was not eligible to run for president, he blurted: \u201cHonestly, I\u2019ve never looked at it. Somebody said he\u2019s not. And I retweeted it. I have 14 million people between Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and I retweet things and we start dialogue and it\u2019s very interesting.\u201d. Similarly, challenged to explain why he retweeted a message from a neo-Nazi account (containing made-up crime statistics regarding white people murdered by Afro-Americans): \u201cBill, am I gonna check every statistic? All it was is a retweet. It wasn\u2019t from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Retweeting allows us to send messages while distancing ourselves from the content we convey. Of course, the veil between us and the message may be thin. It is fairly obvious that Trump meant to present those retweets as conveying reliable information. Still, had he made those false statements himself (instead of retweeting them), he couldn\u2019t have brushed off criticisms so easily. Like the rumour-mongerer, the retweeter who shares false information still faces a loss in credibility, but this loss is cushioned by a convenient layer of plausible deniability. This limited accountability (and not merely its capacity to make content go viral) is what makes reposting an ideal conduit for misinformation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n