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Laura * (34) is vegan, works for an animal welfare organization – and full of doubts: How can corona infections increase, but hospitals remain empty? Why do we all have to wear masks anyway?
Medical professionals have explanations for this. The newspapers write about it. But Laura doesn’t listen to medical professionals. What’s more, she no longer reads newspapers. “I think politicians are deliberately lying to us,” says the young woman, who does not want to see her real name printed: “They need the virus to manipulate us. And you, the mainstream media, are in cahoots with them. “
To understand why Laura thinks this way, you have to immerse yourself in the digital world in which she has spent several hours a day for months. Stories about alleged elites and their secret machinations are booming on the YouTube video platform, on social media, on the Telegram messaging service.
Restless people as easy victims
A network of conspiracy ideologues cleverly exploits the insecurity of the people in the Corona crisis to disperse absurd theories. This misinformation is going viral more and more often, making its way into the middle of society.
What about skeptics like Laura? You sink into the vortex of fake news. Let yourself be carried away by a parallel world online, in which facts barely penetrate, in which people lose confidence in state institutions, in the media and, ultimately, in democracy.
The membership of such conspiracy platforms has exploded in recent months. One of the telegram channels of the right-wing conspiracy sect QAnon operated from Switzerland. At the beginning of March there were 23,000 like-minded people there; today there are 125,000. The channel broadcasts fake news every hour about the coronavirus and alleged circles of power that drink children’s blood. The FBI classifies QAnon as a terrorist threat.
Hetz’s Influencer
The pandemic has brought to the surface a new generation of influencers. Digital stars who deny the disease, encourage precautionary measures, and thus reach an audience of millions.
One of these conspiracy influencers is Russia’s German friend under the pseudonym Ken Jebsen. 500,000 people have subscribed to his YouTube channel. Like so many conspiracy ideologues, he spreads anti-Enlightenment propaganda in his videos, sometimes enriched with anti-Semitic clues.
The result: Crown skeptics are met by neo-Nazis who want nothing more than the overthrow of such channels and networks. At worst, people like vegan Laura end up in groups, where there is now an open call to arm themselves.
Fake news as a threat to democracy
Most of them are limited to a kind of salon radicalism, which finds its expression above all on Internet platforms. Yet a week ago, 40,000 people marched for a large demonstration in Berlin: esotericists and conspiracy theorists alongside thousands of right-wing extremists. There were attacks on police officers. And the question remains: do we need stricter rules for social media and platforms like YouTube?
Until now, Switzerland has relied on the responsibility of Internet companies. The Federal Council already admitted in 2017 that fake news endangers the formation of a democratic opinion. And various studies have concluded that anti-democracy and conspiracy theories are related. However, the government decided not to intervene the state.
But now there seems to be a behind-the-scenes rethinking. Research shows: The Federal Office for Communication (OFCOM) is examining whether new laws against lies and hatred should be created. On behalf of the Federal Council, it will prepare a report on this issue by spring 2021.
Bakom spokesman Francis Meier confirms: “The report will address the question of whether there is a need for regulation from a Swiss perspective and what measures would be appropriate for it.” Bakom says nothing about what a law against disinformation could look like. However, Meier refers to a preliminary study from March in which the federal government clarified how Internet platforms could be regulated without violating constitutional principles such as freedom of expression.
Internet companies must be responsible
One possibility would be to force search engines and social networks to make their algorithms, the mechanisms that decide when and where certain content is displayed, transparent. Furthermore, so-called social bots could be banned during elections and voting. These are computer programs that distribute content automatically. Last but not least, platforms could be legally bound to maintain “political, ideological and religious neutrality”.
In other countries, such considerations have already become facts. In Germany, for example, social media has to eliminate hate speech and fake news. If they don’t, they face heavy fines.
In June, the EU Commission announced that it would force Internet companies to take action against incorrect information about the coronavirus.
The agency requires social media to publish monthly reports on the emergence of conspiracy theories and their action against them. “Disinformation in times of the coronavirus pandemic can kill,” warned the representative of EU Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell.
