“Don’t start with Satanic Ritual Abuse,” a guest on Reality Check Radio (RCR) says. He’s laying out a recruitment plan. He wants you to believe a debunked conspiracy theory that is a core tenet of today’s Qanon movement and inspired the 1980s “satanic panic”, leading innocent people to spend decades in jail.
The plan is to seed ideas, asking seemingly innocuous but leading questions but staying away from the hard stuff. He wants to provide an entry point, the start of a pipeline which can lead people to far more extreme beliefs.
Start with one small “truth” and wait for a nibble
It’s a manipulative and dishonest strategy. The aim is to draw people into a marketing funnel where “prospects” are converted into full blown conspiracy theorists. In popular culture this transformation is known as ‘being red pilled’, but the RCR guest is suggesting a slower, more subtle approach to radicalising others. He calls it “pink pilling”.
Not everyone will complete the journey. Some will part ways as they are asked to believe stranger and stranger things. Others will bail out because the things they are being asked to believe start to conflict with their core values. But a hardcore few will make it through to the bitter end.
So how do people get drawn to the open mouth of the marketing funnel?
Conspiracy theories are often shared organically by people who are sincerely convinced and just want to share their “truth”. But that’s not always the case. Governments also spread conspiracy theories and disinformation to weaken their enemies. Extremists use conspiracy theories to recruit people to their political outlook. Others, such as anti-vaxxers and Silicon Valley tech-bros, have found that conspiracy theories can be very profitable.
Several different techniques are used to draw people in.
They “flood the zone” to overwhelm people with information and make it more likely their content will show up in search results. They exploit social media algorithms which prioritise “eyeballs and interaction” by producing emotive, provocative content designed to provoke a reaction. Research has also shown that platforms’ need to increase “engagement” to generate advertising revenue means that as you show interest, you will be presented with more and more extreme material, so you keep scrolling and watching.
And there’s a lot of content to share. Much of it evades moderation rules on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Further out there’s Telegram, Rumble and Odysee providing an almost completely moderation-free social media ecosystem, where conspiracy theories nestle happily between overt political extremism and explicitly violent content.
Locally, New Zealand’s largest conspiracy group Voices for Freedom set up Reality Check Radio to act as a soothing entry-level audio introduction to New Zealand’s conspiracy theory community. It leans heavily on wellness and lifestyle content to entice people towards more radical material. “RCR is not for people deep in the rabbit warren; it’s for those who are milling about the entrance… and want to hear their own thoughts and feelings affirmed”.
But good old word of mouth recruitment also plays an important role. Voices For Freedom has set up a network of local groups which host gatherings and share conspiracy content. It encourages its members to have “courageous conversations” with their contacts.
“Another really good thing to do is, with these courageous conversations, is practise the questions. Practice asking questions to people every day where you go about… I don’t find it easy because I have a tendency to want to just, you know, tell people what the truth is, but it really usually works better when you have those questions.” – Voices For Freedom Lounge Edition with Alia, Claire and Libby- 17 June 2022
Claire explains
For more on the “just asking questions” technique, see our first article in this series.
If you make contact with Voices for Freedom, everything is set up to draw you further down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. (For a more detailed account see “Signing up to fight for freedom – Curious inquiry leads to talk of execution” by Stuff Circuit journalist Louisa Cleave.)
You’re allocated to a coordinator and welcomed into a local group; you receive “support” in the form of a regular supply of misinformation from Voices for Freedom HQ; you are given plenty of opportunities to interact with like minded people who will validate your beliefs and access to private telegram groups – essentially echo chambers where anti vaccine and New World Order conspiracy theories are consensus reality.
There’s a sense of camaraderie and purpose. You are encouraged to see yourself as part of a movement fighting back against the imposition of “tyranny” and to feel an unearned sense of superiority because, unlike the ignorant sheeple, you are “awake, to what’s really going on. If your “normie” friends react badly or challenge your beliefs they risk pushing you further down the conspiracist pipeline. (For tips on how to to approach these conversations productively see these “rules of engagement”.)
By now, if all has gone to plan you will have responded to Voices for Freedom’s regular calls for donations and be starting your own ‘courageous conversations’ to bring in new recruits. But you will also have encountered content created by the more radical end of New Zealand conspiracy driven “freedom movement” such as Counterspin media. Counterspin shares a similar conspiracy worldview to VFF but it is less concerned about appearing respectable to mainstream New Zealand. It has promoted anti-semitic propaganda and directly advocated the use of political violence. Now you’ve been introduced to Telegram you are always only a few clicks away from even more extreme content and a potential pipeline to further radicalisation.
We often hear that certain types of people are “vulnerable” to conspiracy theories. But that can be a bit misleading. Anyone can find themselves in a situation or state of mind that makes them susceptible. Some conspiracies are real so you can’t just reject them all out of hand. Additionally, a good chunk of conspiracy theorising is motivated by understandable concerns about the illegitimate exercise of power or a desire to protect others. The problem arises when they are based on falsehoods and lead people to act in ways that cause harm.
It’s notoriously hard for people to climb out of the rabbit hole, so a good way to start protecting yourself and others is to learn how to spot false conspiracy theories and how they differ from real ones.
