Tag: debunking

Does Debunking Conspiracy Theories Make Them Worse?

Mike Rothschild

Does pushing back against disinformation actually amplify disinformation?

It’s a question that journalists and debunkers constantly grapple with – whether their efforts to expose the truth about conspiracy theories merely expose more people to conspiracy theories. And by extension, they give life to a conspiracy theory just at the point where it should be hitting the limit of people open to believing it. Even just the act of taking apart misinformation can be used as proof that the misinformation is the truth, and that the person taking it apart is a paid shill trying to “contain the damage.”

There’s a name for this phenomenon, the “backfire effect.” Coined in 2010 to describe proponents of the Iraq War digging in deeper when evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction was debunked, the backfire effect essentially states that, as RationalWiki puts it, “in the face of contradictory evidence, established beliefs do not change but actually get stronger.”

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The World War II Myth That Will Never Die

Mike Rothschild

78 years ago today, the military of Nazi Germany crashed across the border of Poland and began the Second World War.

On that first day of battle, a skirmish took place between German and Polish troops that would become mythologized as an example of both Polish stupidity and the awesome power of the German war machine.

In what became known as the “Charge at Krojanty,” a group of Polish mounted cavalry supposedly rode headlong into German tanks, either because they’d been tricked into thinking they were fake, or because they simply weren’t smart enough to fight a modern mechanized war.

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