MT 3/2022 · 1 One of the consequences – some might say penalties – for living in (relatively) open democracies is that free speech is not only practiced but encouraged – no matter the quality, veracity or rational foundation. The emergence and meteoric ascendance of social media in the last two decades has fuelled, reinvigorated and given new prominence to one of the more pernicious aspects of human behaviour en masse: conspiracy theory has become socially acceptable. Conspiracy theory is not a new phenomenon. It has been the root cause of wars – domestic and foreign – campaigns of exploration and oppression, development of economic and diplomatic policy, for two millenia. As long as two or more of us are gathered in our own name, so shall there be a degree of belief in the extraordinary, the unlikely or the frankly ludicrous as the underlying cause of our misfortunes, rather than a careful, considered analysis of those inconvenient artifacts of rational thought – facts. Conspiracy theorists hold that the CIA arranged for the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, almost certainly in cahoots with organized crime; that the Moon landing was a hoax; that Angela Merkel is Hitler’s granddaughter; that 5G cell towers are the mechanism by which COVID spread; that Britain’s royal family consists of space-faring lizards taken human form; or that the war in Ukraine has been engineered by big business to dominate the energy and commodities markets. Only one of those theories is the subject of outright fabrication by your Editor – and it has nothing to do with reptiles! The problem with conspiracy theory is that it appeals to those who eschew rational thought in favour of finding someone to blame and – preferably – pointing the virtual finger at them and shouting loudly. Quite why that is supposed to resolve anything defies explanation, frankly And the theory conveniently ignores the one overriding objection that reasonable people mount: how on Earth can one believe that a secret so vast, and involving as many people as would have had to be involved in fabricating the story of the Moon landing, for example, could be kept – in that case for almost 53 years. In the era of Assange and Snowden, it is unlikely, to say the least, that somebody ‘in the know,’ or on the fringes of pertinent knowledge, would not have sought the advantage or notoriety that (regrettably) attaches to the growing sport of whistleblowing. Conspiracy theorists have done considerable damage, it has to be said, to the reputation, reliability and utility of social media. Never Ascribe to Conspiracy That Which is Due to Stupidity Editorial caused the war. The US instigated it with NATO’s help in order to dominate the Ukraine agricultural market and cripple Russia’s energy industry. NATO represents an ‘existential threat’ to Mother Russia and should be dismembered and destroyed, even at the cost of using nuclear weapons. Such thinking leads into dangerous waters. Just recently Aleksey Zhuravlyov, the Deputy Chairman of the Kremlin’s Defence Committee, suggested that Russia could (and should) destroy Britain in four minutes and Finland in ten seconds, using its all-powerful Satan missile. Quite apart from the fact that Russian equipment has not worked as advertised in Ukraine, and ignoring the confused, almost incoherent nature of the delivery (he appears to be a graduate of the Donald J Trump Institute for Rhetorical Eloquence), there is a disturbing sense of inviolate hubris – no recognition of the inevitable consequence of executing such a policy. The threat is not being taken seriously – otherwise there would be far more visible activity and protest at the British government’s appalling laxity in allowing such a state of affairs to develop. But the fact that we have built an environment in which such threats can be made – and widely circulated – is in itself a dangerous development. Bearing in mind I live in a high-priority target area, I might have as much as a femtosecond to regret my error. Russians would have decades. Tim Mahon Editor-in-Chief of MilTech The indiscriminate use of social media to promulgate radical ideas, to fabricate ‘evidence,’ to vilify public figures or bodies, to undermine rational debate and to give hugely disproportionate prominence to the voice of often frankly deranged (or driven by cynical self-aggrandising machinations) minorities, erodes democracy. It diminishes the quality of the wider democracy that was an aspirational goal of those who first came up with the social media concept. And – from a national and collaborative security perspective – it opens the door to actors of ill intent, who use it to prey on the vulnerable or to exercise disproportionate effect on public opinion. And trying to exploit it can have unanticipated detrimental effects. Consider the case of the soi-disant ‘Ghost Pilot’ of the Ukraine Air Force, reputed to have shot down 40 Russian aircraft. An active social media campaign to elicit international empathy for the fate of the plucky warrior when his death was announced quickly became counter-productive when his fictional nature was revealed. Conspiracy theory needs to be debunked and discounted. Debate – and the constant awareness that, more often than not, what theorists ascribe to conspiracy is, in fact, the consequence of inveterate stupidity – need to be encouraged and facilitated at a ‘whole of nation’ level in order to minimise its negative effects. A case in point. Increasingly, as the Russians experience setback after contretemps after humiliating defeat in Ukraine, the theories are coming more and more to the fore. NATO aggression
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