Shady Pandemic News Sources Thrive by Being Better at Giving People What They Want

In a controversial and widely-read essay published recently, Jonathan Haidt argues that during the last ten years politics have become "uniquely stupid" because of the internet. If that is true then the last three years of pandemic politics is the poster child.

Most of the COVIDiocy we've seen has taken place on the internet, and whatever has happened in person was organized on the internet. It's where anti-vaxxers denounce a miracle of modern medicine and get rich selling their supplements and quack cures. It's where anti-maskers organize rallies to rail against mask mandates.

This is happening despite the efforts of search services to demote links to fake news. I challenge you try and find an anti-vaxxer link on Google using keywords like "COVID vaccine side effects" or "COVID vaccine dangers." If you get anything it will be buried deep in the results.

So why does this garbage continue to circulate and influence people? An article just out in Nature Human Behavior tries to explain why.

They argue it is a combination of characteristics of the consumers and providers of information. On the consumer side there is confirmation bias. That is a tendency for people to seek out information that validates their existing beliefs. If you already think vaccines are dangerous, then you will gravitate to sources that support this idea.

So there are lots of consumers out there looking for fake news about vaccine dangers (or whatever). That means when conventional news outlets try to suppress that topic—which they have been doing more of recently—there is in effect unmet demand.

Shady sources recognize this and provide "news" that scratches the itch. They might be ideologically motivated, and the study notes that there are some sources like this. But they also might sources that are low quality or not concerned with accuracy, and are doing it for the eyeballs (eyeballs = $$).

So when it comes to fake news about the pandemic, it's a matter of good old supply and demand. People want sources that validate their biases. Shady sources are just more responsive to demand and better at giving people what they want.

Image by Wokandapix from Pixabay 


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