Can we defend against the online anti-science movement?

Where would we be without science — living short brutish lives in caves? I exaggerate, but not much, and only to make the point that science and scientists have enriched our lives beyond measure. We travel near or far in cars that are heated or cooled as needed while we are entertained by music or podcasts. We stay awake well past dark in our well-lit homes, reading books, watching television, playing computer games and communicating with friends and family via our smartphones and the Internet.

We have comfortable furniture, indoor plumbing and appliances that clean our dishes, clothes and homes. We keep food fresh in refrigerators and cook food with convenient stoves and ovens. When we are sick or injured, we can receive medical treatments that are safe and effective.

Yet Americans have had an enduring love-hate relationship with science, making heroes out of Thomas Edison while enjoying the public pillorying of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

It is ironic that tools created by scientists have amplified the current attack on science. The Internet, for example, began as an academic project that would allow interconnected computers to share data and computing power. As the Internet opened up to everyone, optimists hoped that the easy access to information would liberate people — after all, information is power.

The Internet offered the possibility and hope of genuinely free speech with people worldwide able to hear the truth uncensored by government officials. Those who are oppressed by totalitarian governments would be able to see how others live and be inspired to demand more. Those who were lied to by their governments would see the truth. Those who didn’t go to elite colleges would be able to learn online. Those who don’t know how to build a table or fix a leaky faucet could be guided by online instructions.

It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

Instead, the Internet facilitates the rapid and widespread disseminations of disinformation, both by pranksters and by the malevolent. Instead of good information winning out over bad information in the court of public opinion, it now appears that the opposite is true — that we live in a post-truth world where falsehoods are believed and facts are dismissed.

The easy access and wide reach of the Internet in general and social media in particular allows pretty much anyone to say pretty much anything and find a receptive audience, including anti-science claims that the earth is flat; the moon landings were faked; and Bill Gates orchestrated the COVID-19 crisis so that he can use vaccines to insert microchips in our bodies. Like a Frankenstein monster that has gotten out of control, the Internet powers the anti-science movement.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon’s weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

Vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, chickenpox and other diseases have been lifesavers for millions, yet some people believe that vaccines are part of a nefarious government plot to harm us or spy on us. Briton Andrew Wakefield is the source of the now thoroughly debunked claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Journals have retracted his research and he has been barred him from practicing medicine in the United Kingdom, yet celebrities continue to spread his wildly irresponsible fabrications throughout the Internet.

So, too, with dangerous falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines. Too many people have reacted to the heroic successes of scientists in developing safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines with distrust, disinformation and refusals to take the vaccine. It is sad enough that people who believe these untruths risk their lives, but they also endanger others.

A distrust of elites in general and scientists in particular is spread and magnified by the Internet swamp of fake stories, misleading videos and manipulated social media. We see clickbait that is interesting and supports our beliefs. We click, read, are happy to have our beliefs confirmed, and share the link with like-minded people. Those with different beliefs are led to different links, which they share with people who agree with them. Social media is tribalizing in that the world becomes increasingly divided into warring groups convinced that they are right and others are wrong.

Social media and Internet platforms value engagement above all else — stories people will read, videos they will watch, tweets they will share. The longer a user is engaged, the more data companies can collect and sell. Unfortunately, one of the most reliable ways to keep people engaged is to feed them sensational falsehoods. Provocative links are promoted — and things that are provocative are often exaggerated, misleading or downright lies.

In addition to promoting links that titillate, algorithms select content that confirms biases and fuels hyper-partisanship by luring people into filter bubbles in which they mostly read and watch things that support their worldview. Users seldom leave their bubbles — indeed, they often don’t know they are inside a bubble — because the algorithms keep feeding them more of the same. If users are aware of people with other viewpoints, the other people are deemed enemies — uninformed and clueless.

Firehoses of falsehood have been loosely constrained by the number of people needed to do the dirty work. Now, ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) can generate an essentially infinite supply of disinformation. Even if they were specific and enforceable, agreements among tech giants to behave better will do little to reign them in. LLMs are cheap and bad actors are not easily deterred. The Internet is about to be drowned by a tsunami of deceit, much of it intended to further undermine the credibility of governments, evidence-based policies and the scientists that provide the evidence.

A first step for combating this coming tsunami of deceit is to block bot access to social media by requiring people creating internet accounts to be verified through clear evidence of identity. Savvy tech companies that use our internet activities to identify what we like and dislike can surely do a better job of identifying fake accounts and shuttering them.

Social media companies can also do more to identify phony news stories and videos, tag stories and videos that are clearly false and shut down repeat-offender accounts that initiate multiple false news stories.

Another weapon in the war against lies, lies and more lies would be for schools to teach required courses in media literacy, including the ways in which we are manipulated by the media and the tricks that advertisers and others use to mislead and misinform.

It will be hard to fend off the assault on science, but it is a battle worth fighting — the costs of rejecting science are enormous, not just for anti-scientists, but for society as a whole.