For 20 years, writer and filmmaker Dylan Reeve has kept an eye on what people are talking about on the internet, including the rise of conspiracy theories.
He takes a deep dive into how alternative beliefs are spread and adopted in the new book Fake Believe: Conspiracy Theories in Aotearoa
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Listen to the interview
Early in the century, Reeve says he started engaging in online debates about a range of subjects, including, for a while, conspiracy theories.
"I participated as a sceptic in conspiracy forums online until 2014, 2015 when the tone changed and I stopped wanting to be part of that. But I've been watching it the whole time", he tells Kathryn Ryan.
Over this time, these ideas became more politics-based and increasingly influential, Reeve says.
Thankfully in New Zealand, we don't have major political parties that embrace alternative reality beliefs, he says, as the Republican Party's alignment with these fed into the "perfect storm situation" that was Donald Trump's election as president in 2016.
The "meme warfare" of so-called internet trolls who promoted Donald Trump as a joke inevitably attracted people with their own ideological baggage, Reeve says.
It also didnt help that Hillary Clinton was Trump's main opponent, he says, because the Clinton family have always been a magnet for conspiracy theories.
People who've made a business out of popularising these ideas – such as "the CNN of conspiracy theories" Alex Jones – really seem to believe in what they're selling, Reeve says.
"I want to believe Alex Jones is just a grifter. He's just a guy doing an act to make millions of dollars, which is functionally what he's done. But as far as I can tell he's drinking his own kool-aid."
Although scientific research tells us that belief in conspiracy theories is not increasing and possibly even decreasing, Reeve says he's seen the opposite, especially during the Covid pandemic.
In this global event with global connectedness, in the online places where people communicate, some people started scaremongering and others started seeking out alternative information, he says.
Facebook and Twitter were slow to respond to misinformation, but when they did people were forced into more alternative platforms like Telegram, where the bulk of conspiracy theory discussion happens among New Zealanders.
"If you've got the mainstream media doing stories about how great vaccination is and you're really concerned about vaccination that plants distrust in the mainstream media .. and that puts a filter on everything you see coming out of the media."
In spaces like Telegram, a person with a reasonable belief – i.e. vaccines haven't been studied well enough – will find confirmation that their personal concerns are justified, Reeve says.
Yet in these same places, all kinds of less reasonable ideas are also floating around.
If you join the Telegram group for the anti-vaccination network Voices for Freedom, you'll also learn about the conspiracy behind the UN's 'Agenda 2030', global cabals like Q-anon and "at the steeper end of it, shape-shifting alien reptiles", he says.
People who strongly believe such theories and feel that their loved ones are in danger – "be it their eternal soul or be it 5G" – want to inform them so out of fear, Reeve says.
And even if that's based on false belief, you're not going to successfully argue someone out of it.
The best way to connect with someone whose beliefs have diverged from your own, Reeves says, is with open, honest discussion and connecting on the beliefs that you still share.
Related:
What it's like to fall into a conspiracy rabbit hole (The Panel)
When a relative falls down a rabbit hole (Opinion)
Dylan Reeve on the Freedom Convoy (Nights)
Dylan Reeve on the hunt for Patient Zero (The Detail)
Measuring trust is tricky with suspicious minds (Mediawatch)
Vaccine resistance's roots in negative childhood experiences (News)
Why the QAnon conspiracy refuses to die (Saturday Morning)
Living in the age of disinformation (Nine to Noon)
David Farrier: examining conspiracy culture in New Zealand (Saturday Morning)