When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, a strange conspiracy theory flooded social media: radiofrequency emissions from 5G antennas were responsible for the disease. This belief led to over 100 acts of vandalism against telecommunications infrastructure and aggressive behavior toward workers in the sector.
Our brain uses mental shortcuts to process complex information, such as confirmation bias which pushes us to retain what confirms our pre-existing ideas. This tendency to see malicious intentions in unexplained events has historically fueled injustices, from witch hunts to modern conspiracy theories. These phenomena often emerge from networks of interactions without any conscious will directing them.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people attacked 4G and 5G antennas mistakenly believing their emissions caused the disease. In groups, strange behaviors frequently appear. Pluralistic ignorance occurs when everyone believes that others understand a situation, when in reality nobody grasps the truth. "Groupthink" pushes members to silence their opinions to preserve group harmony, even when they disagree. These dynamics emerge naturally under certain conditions and often surprise authorities.
Modern social media accelerates the spread of extreme ideas. Whereas rumors once spread slowly from village to village, today online communities instantly connect like-minded people regardless of their geographical location. This connectivity allows marginal opinions to find wide resonance and quickly generate surprising collective behaviors, such as the sabotage of 5G antennas.
Misleading messages spread effectively because they exploit our cognitive biases, unlike truthful information which cannot compete. Studies show that the diffusion of false information follows epidemiological models, with 'influencers' becoming 'super-spreaders'.
The fight against disinformation faces major obstacles. Creators of malicious content invoke freedom of speech and migrate between platforms. Audiences often persist in their erroneous beliefs and forget counterarguments over time. The diversity of propagation methods makes the task particularly arduous, creating a permanent arms race between disseminators of falsehoods and defenders of truth.
The cognitive biases that distort our perception
Our brain constantly develops mental shortcuts to process information quickly, an inheritance from our evolution that helps us make decisions. These mechanisms, although useful, can lead us to systematic judgment errors.
Confirmation bias pushes us to preferentially seek and retain information that confirms our existing beliefs, while ignoring or minimizing that which contradicts them. This phenomenon explains why two people looking at the same facts can draw radically different conclusions.
The tendency to attribute malicious intentions to inexplicable events represents another important bias. Rather than accepting uncertainty or complexity, our mind prefers to imagine hidden actors or conspiracies, which provides a sense of control over otherwise confusing situations.
These cognitive distortions amplify in digital environments where algorithms selectively expose us to content reinforcing our pre-existing opinions, creating information bubbles increasingly impermeable to contradictory facts.
Group dynamics and their emergent effects
When individuals gather, collective behaviors emerge that cannot be predicted simply by studying isolated members.
Pluralistic ignorance perfectly illustrates this dynamic: each group member assumes that others share a common understanding or opinion, when in reality nobody possesses this certainty. This collective misunderstanding can persist indefinitely as long as nobody dares to express their doubts.
Groupthink represents another mechanism where group cohesion takes precedence over rational decision-making. Members self-censor their reservations and converge toward an average position, often more extreme than their individual opinions. This process has contributed to historical disasters like the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.
Group polarization occurs when discussions reinforce initial positions rather than moderating them. Moderate members tend to rally to the most assertive positions.