[Lee Byung-jong] Living in age of conspiracy theories

Does anybody remember the mad cow disease scare that rocked all of South Korean society 16 years ago? According to the theory, people were supposed to have melted brains if they eat US beef.

Massive anti-US beef protests paralyzed downtown Seoul for weeks, crippling the administration of President Lee Myung-bak that tried to assuage the concern with scientific evidence. Fortunately, nobody I know of has died of the disease and people around me very much enjoy US beef now that is cheaper than hanwoo or locally grown beef.

But people hardly learn lessons from the past.

When Japan began to release contaminated water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plants a year ago, many Koreans panicked and protested again, alarmed by another health scare that our seafood will be full of deadly radioactivity. Many nuclear experts, including the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, sought to assure the public that the water had been treated thoroughly to guarantee safety, but the fear and objections persisted. A year and 40,000-plus tests later, the water proved to be safe and, again, nobody I know of got sick eating seafood from Japan.

Why is there so much unfounded panic and scare in our society?

I would like to attribute it to the growing influence of conspiracy theories. Both at home and abroad, numerous conspiracy theories full of fake news and disinformation captivate and confuse us with seriously harmful effects. Amid a flurry of information circulating around us via the internet and social media, we are increasingly losing our ability to tell truth from falsehood. People easily fall victim to even the most nonsensical conspiracy theories.

Ironically, media technology development exacerbates the problem.

With the advent of AI technology that enables the faking of images and video, conspiracy theories become more believable. Those technologies can be exploited easily for political or commercial purposes. Take the example of the US, which faces a crucial presidential election in November.

Last week, former President Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign for using AI to manipulate the size of the crowd gathered for her campaign speech. Trump argued his presumptive opponent for the election exaggerated the crowd size by faking pictures. His claim was debunked by most established news sources, but Trump supporters continue to believe it anyway.

In fact, Trump is known as a habitual purveyor of conspiracy theories. The most notable case is of course his claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and his election was stolen. There were no grounds for his allegation, but it didn’t matter. Firmly believing the conspiracy theory, his supporters stormed the US Capitol in 2021, resulting in tragic casualties. Democrats worry Trump would repeat the allegation if he loses the coming election, dividing the American society further and causing a serious social unrest again.

Conspiracy theories are often magnified by irresponsible media.

For the 2020 US election, there was the ultraconservative broadcaster Fox News that reiterated Trump’s claims. As its audience overlaps very much with Trump supporters, Fox was able to enjoy high ratings by working as Trump’s microphone. In the end, a vote counting system company sued Fox and the news channel had to pay an astronomical amount of $787 million for damaging the company’s reputation by falsely claiming it rigged the election.

A similar pattern is found in Korea’s conspiracy cases.

For the mad cow disease scandal, there were MBC TV and other media outlets that spread the health scare of US beef. MBC documentary programs in particular stoked fears among viewers by blowing out of proportion the harmful effects of the disease. For the recent Fukushima water release case, Korea’s mass media also played a role. Their negative reporting about the safety of the water led many to avoid seafood altogether, although Seoul continued to ban seafood from Fukushima.

Unfortunately, Korea’s list of media-stoked, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories is rather long.

In 2017, some Koreans shied away from melons after a US antimissile battery system was deployed in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, which is known for tasty melons. Critics argued the weapons radiate harmful electromagnetic waves. Government officials ate melons from the region, but the display wasn’t enough to allay concern. With an additional claim that the US weapons would unnecessarily provoke China, protests by residents and activists continued for years and subsided only recently, after a series of government tests proved no health hazards.

Producers of conspiracy theories are not the only ones to be blamed. Their consumers are equally responsible.

Increasingly, today’s audiences seek out and believe only the information that suits and confirms their existing opinions, while ignoring others. The confirmation bias keeps people in the echo chamber where they hear only the voices of like-minded people that further strengthen their sometimes misguided beliefs. Obviously, the tendency is reinforced by the proliferation of social media that segment and compartmentalize their audiences.

In this environment, conspiracy theories continue to survive and thrive, dictating the lives of many.

There are those who believe Elvis Presley is still alive and humans never landed on the moon. Some believe Princess Diana was assassinated by the royal family and aliens from other planets are being experimented on by the US government.

Those conspiracies can be dismissed as cute, playful hoaxes. But when it comes to such claims as COVID-19 vaccines or US beef sickening or killing people, it is a completely different story. A society can die in the darkness of those dark theories.

Lee Byung-jong

Lee Byung-jong is a former Seoul correspondent for Newsweek, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News. He is a professor of international relations at Sookmyung Women’s University in Seoul. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.