Before continuing, please read the following.

Target audience: this article is not for an audience immersed in conspiracy culture. There is a spectrum of skepticism here. On one end are people who are suspicious of power and its potential abuses. In the middle or those who believe in a few, plausible conspiracies. This article is a tool for these first two. At the other end are those that believe in several, implausible conspiracies.

Purpose: the purpose of this is to provide insight for navigating the plausibility and implausibility of conspiracies (as pointed out below, some are true) and how to communicate that.

Layout: this article has two layers. General communication tips are in blue italics. Tips for you to consider in your own analysis of a conspiracy are in regular text.

General Communication Tips

Prebunking is better

An ounce of prevention is better than a cure. The same goes for this conspiracy stuff. Promoting critical thinking and reaching audiences before the fall into this sand trap is very effective. This has been demonstrated with anti-vaccine conspiracies (Jollye and Doulgas, 2017). Keep this mind if you engage a conspiracy theorist online, you may be helping prebunk the conspiracy for the audience.

Be patient

People can be invested in their beliefs and resist change—even when confronted with robust and objective evidence. This is known as the backfire effect (Nyhan, Brendan, and Reifler, 2010). There is no sure-fire formula. Getting people to see their error is difficult, especially for things in which they have high ego involvement, and the claim your advancing is in their lateral of rejection—see Social Judgment Theory, developed by Sherif and others (1961, 1965, & 1967).

Those that do eventually “see the light” do so incrementally, slowly eroding the false belief. You are not likely going to deliver the final blow, but if done right, you might provide valuable support for that eventual final blow.

So obviously, the funny meme in the headline pic is not viable. It just reflects how we communicators feel at times and give comic relief to others who share that frustration.

But engaging conspiracy theorists online also equips the audience with the intellectual tools to avoid the cognitive traps (Prebunking).

Use learning based communication (See Science communication in the republic) for some general tips. Remember, if they are not receptive the logic will not work. It works best when using strategies that are time tested:

finding common ground;

showing some interest in understanding why they think this way

that you are open to good evidence, and that’s all this about;

and if you can make them laugh a little, that can help.

The blog/page Debunking Denialism wrote an excellent article about recognizing the flaws of conspiracy theories. Note these are to help you avoid falling into the traps, but the can help you find weak points. They do not use the phrasing of the actual counter. For that, John cook has some excellent advice here.

How conspiracies theories can be flawed

Rejecting possible falsifiability

This is a sand trap. It posits that any evidence against it is part of the conspiracy. You should avoid this for obvious reasons.

But for communicating with those who did, it might help to find articles or videos from former conspiracy theorists (Schmitt et al.,2018).

“This conspiracy was true, so mine is true.”

Some conspiracy theories turn out to be true (such as these ones). But this is no reason to accept every cockamamie claim. The key is to keep your openness in proportion to the balanced between the claim’s extraordinariness and evidence.

For example, the more people that are necessary to successfully pull off the cover-up (like faking a moon landing), then the more extraordinary it is, which would require more evidence than just a YouTube rant.

Section 2.6 discusses belief and skeptical inquiry. But in short, we must remain open to plausible scenarios. For example, it is plausible that Jeffrey Epstein was murdered. I’m not sad that a pedophile died, but the whole situation smells funny. He was allegedly about to testify which powerful people would come to his private island of child prostitution. But it is premature to assert that he was in murdered as a matter of fact, and also definitely too early to dismiss this possibility. In the meantime, I’m remaining open and enjoying the memes, and most of all, hoping that justice is given for those children and families.

If you find yourself engaged with some who believes in an implausible theory, maybe try to find a conspiracy theory they will not believe and use an example that most might accept as plausible (like Epstein). This shows you are open to evidence. Ask them what makes this one true and the other false.

Extraordinary, dangerous, or cautionary claims don’t mean they are true

Yes, we should be wary of power, evil, perceived threat, etc… Not to be cautious on some level, would be dangerously naive. But this doesn’t justify paranoia or extreme gullibility just because we think it would be exciting or dangerous if something might be real.

If someone is using an (implausible) *potential* abuse of power in lieu of evidence, it may very well be that person is afraid. Maybe find a conspiracy that is dangerous, but one they wouldn’t believe and ask them to explain why one is true and the other isn’t.

Do “they” really have the abilities?

The powers that be are not necessarily that efficient all the time in secretive matters. People love to joke about the ineptness of government, but then claim the ominous “they” are orchestrating a perfect cover-up (chemtrails, hiding the cure for cancer, etc.). This sounds like Schorindger’s Government: it is inept when it is convenient for us to say it is, but highly skilled when it is convenient to say it is.

Granted, some teams within some agencies may be highly skilled. Conversely, some groups in other agencies work with the finesse of a sack of potatoes. I mean Bill Clinton’s presidential staff (the highest office of US government) couldn’t hide a stained dress. How good can any agency be at hiding chemtrails or faking a moon landing?

(Incidentally, Monica Lewneski has a wonderfully insightful and inspiring Ted Talk about her experiences, and her Twitter is hilariously witty.)

Moreover, if the ominous “they” had those abilities, then why in the hades is it so easy to find online resources that “expose” the conspiracy? If they could spray us with mind-control chemicals, how did they miss removing those search terms from google?

If someone is asserting the government is covering up something that is too difficult to hide, maybe ask them to explain how everyone is silent?

Who on Earth is that good at planning and predicting the future?

Some conspiracy theories require evil-doers to have an uncanny ability to predict the future years in advance. Thus, the evil-doer must enact a highly intricate, complicated plan to alter some future outcome, seamlessly navigating the chaos. Complicated plans have a way of unraveling, especially if they are to be carried for a long time.

Maybe ask them how did “they” foresee that accurately in the future? Elections, changes in administrative appointments, budget cuts, key players dying, etc…All these can interfere.

Why would these maternal fornicators go through all the trouble?

For many conspiracy theories, the juice just isn’t’ worth the squeeze. Why go through all the trouble to hide “flat Earth?” This requires the covert cooperation of so many governments (to include enemies), and for what gain?

Ask them to asses the cost/benefits. Why would all the world governemtns hide “flat earth?” What is to gain? Especialy when so many of them are enemies?

Last-ditch communication tips when you’re just done dealing with them…

Hyper-twist their logic for fun

This rebuttal method closes the door, rather than opens it, for the conspiracy theorist to get out of the sand trap. Ridicule will likely not work (Schmitt, et al., 2018).

But it does serve two purposes: 1) your own comic relief, and 2) to show the audience (in a sarcastic way) how ridiculous this entire thing is. I refer to these as wit slaps. Use them sparingly (but some situations may call for it, see science communication in the republic). One example includes targeting the wit slap towards a person that has a large following and is profiting from their deluding their followers.

Some humorous examples:

Disengage:

Trying to reach the silent audience has its merits, and trying to shift the conspiracy theorists’ lateral of acceptance is noble. But you can only do so much at any moment. It might just be beneficial to drop it and walk away. Save your sanity.

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Part 1: The fallacy

Part 2: reasons a prevalence

Academic psychology citations:

Bessi, A., Coletto, M., Devidescu, G. A., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., &

Quattrociocchi, W. (2015). Science vs conspiracy: Collective narratives

in the age of misinformation. PLOS ONE, 10, e0118093. doi:10.1371/journal.

pone.0118093

Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017). The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261.

Jolley, D., & Douglas, K. M. (2017). Prevention is better than cure: Addressing

anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 47,

459–469. doi:10.1111/jasp.12453

Mansfeld, W., & Rosas, M. (2016). The GfK Group Project Report for the National Survey of Fear – Wave 3 (310.111.00667.1; GfK Group. https://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/research-centers/babbie-center/_files/codebook-wave-3-draft.pdf

Nyhan, Brendan, & Reifler, Jason. (2010). When corrections fail: The persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32(2), 303-330. doi:10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2

Shao, C., Ciampaglia, G. L., Varol, O., Yang, K.-C., Flammini, A., & Menczer,

F. (2018). The spread of low-credibility content by social bots. Nature

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Schmitt, J. B., Rieger, D., Ernst, J., & Roth, H.-J. (2018). Critical media literacy

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Layman psychology resources:

Luden, David., (2018). “Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories? The need to find order in a confusing world,” by David Ludden Ph.D., posted Jan 6, 2018 in Psychology Today https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201801/why-do-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories]

“12 Common Biases that Affect How We Make Everyday Decisions: Make sure that your decisions that matter are not made based on bias,” by Christopher Dwyer Ph.D., posted Sep 07, 2018 in Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thoughts-thinking/201809/12-common-biases-affect-how-we-make-everyday-decisions