There was so much hope and promise in the beginning of widespread use of the World Wide Web. All the world’s information available at our fingertips, everything that mankind has ever learned, available at the push of a button. At first it was used for chain emails from your crazy aunt Edna, as time went on, it evolved into cat videos and memes. The sum total of humanity’s knowledge was still there, but hey cat videos. Of course, the cat videos were not enough for some; they created vast conspiracies that have always lurked underground in our society.
But with the dawn of the Information Age, these conspiracies grew, and more and more people got sucked into them. The Earth is flat; the moon landing was faked; 9/11 was an inside job; vaccines cause autism; the Clintons killed Vince Foster; Trump or Clinton (depending on what side of the political spectrum you are on) killed Epstein. The list can go on and on. But the idiocy, and lunacy, of these conspiracy theories and others that I see cross my Facebook timeline and my Twitter feed are distressing, especially when I see people who should know better sharing them.
Oftentimes, we get sucked into these rabbit holes through something called conformation bias. For example, if there was a story shared on Facebook that Donald Trump kicked a dog many of us would not only believe the story, but we would share it with our friends. Why? We already all believe the worst about Trump, that he is capable of doing anything, and that he is truly evil—so it would not be a stretch to believe that he kicked a dog. Our predisposed bias against Trump makes it easy to believe that he could kick a dog.
Now Donald Trump is a horrible, shitty excuse for a human being—but, it is important that just because we see, read, or hear something that seems believable that we stop for a minute and think about what it is we are consuming. The first thing to look at is what is the source? What is the agenda of that source? What is the goal of the piece of media? Is a meme that is trying to get a quick reaction and share? Is it a video that plays on your emotions? Or is it what appears to be a well-written piece on a subject you care about? It all comes back to the source. This is not to say that a well-made piece of media cannot be a meme, a heart-wrenching video, or an opinion piece that strikes a chord with you.
What it does mean is that the information, regardless of the way it is consumed, is properly sourced. Did the source material come from The Washington Post, your local newspaper, or some guy who paid for a domain, and lives in a van down by the river, and gets his news from the purple flamingo that he has tea with on Tuesdays? Or worse, is it a foreign actor, like Russia, spreading disinformation?
Disinformation campaigns, like the one the Russian government ran during the 2016 presidential elections worked because social media makes it so easy to share information. Think Hillary had Vince Foster killed? Just click that share button. Think she ran an international child molestation ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor that did not even have a basement, just click share on that article. Think vaccines cause autism? Just click share on that meme. Don’t bother with research—everything you already know is already there, right in front of you.
Which leads me to the latest conspiracy theory now making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter. It’s a meme: on one side there is a picture of Jeffrey Epstein that says “SUICIDE by Hanging. 2016 lawsuit alleged sexual assault by both Epstein and TRUMP when she was 13 years old in 1994.” On the other side is an image of Thomas Bowers explaining “SUICIDE by Hanging. Deutsche Bank executive who signed off on unorthodox loans to TRUMP.”
There is absolutely no evidence that Trump (or Clinton) had anything to do with Epstein’s death. The most likely explanation is Epstein got caught, he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison, and killed himself. Do I wish he had been brought to justice? Yes. Unfortunately, he took things into his own hands and denied his victims their day in court. There is no evidence that Donald Trump had anything to do with his death.
Thomas Bowers, who worked for Deutsche Bank, and per news reports, may have signed off on some of Donald Trump’s loans, committed suicide by hanging. This was most likely out of depression, as his wife passed away in 2017. I have no proof of that, but, that seems to be a more reasonable explanation than a conspiracy theory that the president of the United States put a hit on someone who signed off on some loans.
I should add, does anyone really believe that if Donald Trump actually did order hits on these two men that he could actually keep his mouth shut about it? He would be bragging about it at one of his damn cult rallies, and his zombie-like followers would be eating it up about how tough he was.
Know your bias, be aware of your bias, especially when reading articles that confirm your existing bias. Check sources, verify information, just because it is packaged up in pretty wrapping paper and tied up with a bow does not make it true. Most of all, stop sharing conspiracy theories, leave that to the folks on the right—we should be better than that.