A few weeks ago, for example, a reader wrote to me: "Whilst the 'official' death rate for the coronavirus is repeatedly stated in the media as being 2 per cent, I believe this is a false statistic . . . the real death rate is somewhere between 6 per cent and 18 per cent. IT IS CERTAINLY NOT 2 per cent!" He even added a spreadsheet.
There are plenty of paranoid conspiracies about Covid-19 circulating on social media - check the website of Full Fact, a UK-based fact-checking organisation, for a selection.
The theory that ideas spread, mutate and evolve much like a living organism - or a virus - was popularised by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who in 1976 coined the word "Meme" as an analogue to "Gene".
The possibility of ideas "Going viral" was radical in the 1970s.
Strange ideas mutate and multiply in their own niches, such as social media groups favouring vaccine conspiracies or the idea that mobile phones make you sick.
Such groups are inclined to disbelieve the official version of anything.
The strongest defences against misinformation are people less given to paranoia and to sharing ideas without thinking.
https://www.ft.com/content/32a40a48-5e19-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9
There are plenty of paranoid conspiracies about Covid-19 circulating on social media - check the website of Full Fact, a UK-based fact-checking organisation, for a selection.
The theory that ideas spread, mutate and evolve much like a living organism - or a virus - was popularised by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who in 1976 coined the word "Meme" as an analogue to "Gene".
The possibility of ideas "Going viral" was radical in the 1970s.
Strange ideas mutate and multiply in their own niches, such as social media groups favouring vaccine conspiracies or the idea that mobile phones make you sick.
Such groups are inclined to disbelieve the official version of anything.
The strongest defences against misinformation are people less given to paranoia and to sharing ideas without thinking.
https://www.ft.com/content/32a40a48-5e19-11ea-b0ab-339c2307bcd4?segmentId=b385c2ad-87ed-d8ff-aaec-0f8435cd42d9
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