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The rapid development of technology can either help us dispel myths and conspiracy theories, or give rise to many new ones. Which scenario is most likely and why, said Ilya Yablokov
About the Author: Ilya Yablokov is a historian, media expert, PhD graduate of the University of Manchester, lecturer at the University of Leeds (UK). Author of the book Russian Conspiracy Culture: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet Space. For more than ten years he has been researching conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet space, considering them as a key element of culture, politics and nation-building.
There is no doubt that the current crisis caused by the global coronavirus pandemic will go down in the history of science and technology as one of the key events. The real-time exchange of information between scientists around the world to find a vaccine for the virus is in itself a staggering phenomenon of international academic solidarity. The use of large amounts of data to detect potential carriers of the virus and localize the epidemic is no less significant, although more controversial. What was previously perceived as the cost of authoritarian regimes now “looms” even in the most democratic countries.
Finally, the social perspective of a global pandemic—the speed with which unverified and often dangerous information reaches the end user of the Internet—is no less intriguing. There is a joke that conspiracy theorists who consider 5G towers deadly are worrying for nothing: with the help of them, they will be able to share their fears about a global conspiracy faster. However, now this joke does not look so funny.
Simultaneously with the outbreaks of situational paranoia about the coronavirus, Bill Gates and the power of the “golden billion”, there is another, quite fair concern: how will the data about our health and location obtained by corporations and governments be used? Should we expect “digital fascism” or is it just another version of the Luddite movement, a natural human fear of the coming technological revolution?
Technooptimism vs technopessimism
Attitudes towards innovative developments are rooted in culture, and, as modern sociological studies show, without a careful study of people’s cultural perceptions, it is impossible to understand the entire role that technologies play in modern society. Someone can see in them religion and salvation from all troubles. Take, for example, dataism, about which in his book “HOMO DEUS. A Brief History of the Future,” says futurist Yuval Harari. Big data promises to open up new potential and opportunities in the convergence of technical and biological systems. On the other hand, big data will at some point make artificial intelligence and robots more efficient, and they will replace humans in many professions. Technophobes also fear that digital technologies will soon turn people’s lives into a dystopia, no worse than what was described in science fiction novels of the XNUMXth century.
At the same time, studies by Russian sociologists show that among our countries there are more techno-optimists than techno-pessimists. Viktor Vakhshtein, professor of sociology at Shaninka in Moscow, believes that in our country, faith in technology and trust in it has a direct correlation with political sentiment. The less citizens trust government institutions, the more trust they have in technology. The belief that they can fix what people in power cannot fix/build seems to be an element of the socialist past. However, this does not mean that people are ready to unquestioningly introduce new technologies into their everyday life. The same study shows that in our country the readiness of the population to implement, for example, a robot driver turned out to be lower than in the EU (36% in our country versus 51% in the EU).
political problem
In the context of a global pandemic and the dramatic introduction of digital surveillance technologies into everyday life, our country will be curious to see how attitudes towards the digital presence of the state in private life will change. At the height of the pandemic, monitoring potential patients with coronavirus became the official policy of the Russian government, although here they were clearly unoriginal: almost all European states announced the creation of applications for monitoring possible outbreaks of the epidemic. During global catastrophes, such as the coronavirus pandemic, citizens are indeed ready to give up their freedoms for the sake of survival.
However, the question is now different: at what point will governments and corporations that make their fortunes on users’ personal data leave our personal space? Where are the chances that in a couple of decades we will not find ourselves inside a digital ghetto like Xinjiang Uyghur, and the social points system will not be calculated on the basis of vaccinations and human diseases?
The dilemma of over-suspicion
The last question occupies many and is a continuation of the very dilemma “security/prosperity vs freedom/independence”. The economic prosperity argument plays a big role in the debate about the introduction of digital applications for monitoring coronavirus cases: the more accurately the government can control the incidence, the more effectively it will be able to isolate potentially infected without a massive economic shutdown.
The pursuit of the common good, however, also has its negative side: the extent to which various governments have come to collect and monitor our data, as Edward Snowden spoke about in 2013, in many respects, began precisely with the intention to protect citizens from the terrorist threat.
What will happen to conspiracy theories
Such doubts are an integral part of rational thinking. Conspiracy theories are not as irrational and paranoid attempts to make sense of reality as they might seem. Behind them lies an attempt to understand what is happening, to give it a certain meaning, to analyze the relationship between various social actors and institutions in society. However, the problem of the popularity of conspiracy theories in this context is multifaceted.
On the one hand, due to the strengthening of public and private structures, conspiracy theories will increasingly take on the format of exposing power in a particular society.
As humanity plunges into a financial recession in the next few years (and conspiracy theories always rise in popularity in times of financial turmoil), suspicions about the success of this or that IT corporation will go hand in hand with accusations of its leadership conspiring against ordinary people.
If the coronavirus pandemic really changes our society, then the conspiracy theories around this disease will become something of a natural part of the discourse around the “engine on the water” – an urban legend about the supposedly invented water engine, the production of which is prohibited due to the lobbying of oil workers.
An idea through which the criticism of large, primarily oil-producing corporations, which have a huge influence on politicians around the world, is clearly visible. Global IT companies are akin to the oil giants of the XNUMXst century, so conspiracy around them will be inevitable and, in many ways, natural.
On the other hand, the conspiracy theories surrounding the coronavirus that have flooded Twitter and YouTube in recent months are what await us in the near future precisely because of the way these communication media function.
Social networking algorithms work to ensure that the user stays online as long as possible.
In fact, this is a rabbit hole that leads millions of users into the world of conspiracy theorists, where everything is intertwined and nothing happens by chance. Getting into it, the user will find any theory to his liking, follow the hashtags and links through several videos, and the brain will demand even more such content, thereby increasing the person’s attachment to certain sites and assumptions.
We face an interesting philosophical problem: distrust of state institutions will simultaneously increase faith in technological progress and the popularity of conspiracy theories around technologies that help this progress. If the big tech giants or governments don’t give up some of their powers and payoffs to solve this problem, the next decade could very well be an era of global paranoia.
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