All sorts of strange claims circulate on social media about climate change, vaccines, nutrition, migration and countless other topics. Sometimes, you just want to shout: don’t fall for it – here are the facts!
But according to Anne-Floor Schölvinck, a researcher at the Rathenau Instituut, it’s often wiser to hold your tongue. Beware of alarmism, says the report Wikken en weten. Rather than dismissing claims that sunscreen causes cancer as nonsense, engage with the concerns that people have.
What is wrong with an ‘alarmist’ fact-check?
“If you warn people about a particular piece of misinformation, you also repeat it. As a result, that misinformation reaches people who may never have encountered it before. And they often don’t remember the facts. What sticks is the feeling that there’s no smoke without fire. Vaccines. Sunscreen. There must have been something wrong with them.”
Doesn’t a fact-check reassure people?
“No, often it does not. Drawing attention to the dangers of misinformation can actually make people distrust all news. That’s the backlash. People think: there is so much rubbish going around that I may as well not believe anything.”
So should we simply shrug our shoulders when we come across misinformation?
“That’s the other extreme. It’s dangerous to ignore misinformation altogether, because then you’re also ignoring the people who are concerned. Our message is: take those concerns seriously.”
What do you mean by taking concerns seriously?
“You can focus on what people have in common. Whether or not I vaccinate my children depends on my trust in the science behind vaccines and in the institutions involved. But all parents want what is best for their child. That shared concern is often more important than the factual claim itself. For example, you can point people towards reliable sources of information.”
Does that really help if someone believes the strangest stories on social media?
“Our research found no connection between distrust of science and the amount of time people spend on social media. What matters is the environment in which those messages land: people’s experiences and their general outlook in everyday life. Sometimes people say that social media reduce science to ‘just another opinion’, but we found no evidence for that.”
So social media aren’t the problem?
“It helps if people do not rely solely on social media. Reading newspapers and magazines, or listening to the radio, for example, is beneficial. A varied media diet can help make people more resilient to misinformation.”
Isn’t it discouraging to see so many people sharing bizarre stories?
“I’m naturally optimistic. In our focus groups, we have many conversations about science. The participants are randomly selected and represent a cross-section of society. What always strikes me is how nuanced, open-minded and thoughtful their views on science are. Their arguments are usually very logical and certainly not as sensational as what you sometimes encounter online or in the media.”
Yet it can sometimes seem as though nuance stands little chance in the battle for attention.
“The media discourse is often alarmist, but there is a large group of people who find all that shouting deeply off-putting.”
How do you restore trust in science among people who are already sceptical?
“The frustrating answer from a researcher is that we don’t know yet. We haven’t studied it, so we cannot say. But I believe you need to be interested in why people have come to believe certain things. Don’t focus on a single claim. Look at their wider frame of reference.”