Biology & morality: Asymmetry in political lying; The mindset of some trolls

Researchers at MIT and Oxford published an interesting paper in Nature, Differences in misinformation sharing can lead to politically asymmetric sanctions. That research indicates that conservatives tend to share misinformation more than liberals. This arguably also applies to the spread of disinformation (see the 2nd part of this post below about trolls). What the boffins postulate is that asymmetric misinformation spreading, not political bias, is the main reason that conservatives get canceled more than by social media sites is that they violate policies against spreading misinformation, not because the sites are biased.

I believe that is probably true, but as usual, the results need to be repeated and confirmed. True or not, one can apply the moral logic of Sisella Bok and believe that liberal or conservative people who knowingly share misinformation online, are more immoral (and sometimes evil) than people who do not spread knowingly misinformation. Bok's moral logic is simple: 

Misinformation, lies, slanders, crackpottery and the like lead some people to base their beliefs and behaviors on false information and/or flawed thinking. That takes from deceived people their power to believe and act for themselves based on facts and sound reason. Sometimes, behavior grounded in deceit physically or financially harms some people. Sometimes the harm amounts to literal death, e.g., for false belief in anti-vaxx lies and crackpottery.

How to assess people who unknowingly spread misinformation presents a somewhat different moral analysis. 

Also, authoritarians who believe that the ends, e.g., their side winning and gaining power and/or wealth, justify the means, e.g., spreading misinformation, lies, slanders and crackpottery, will say and/or sometimes actually believe that their tactics at least as moral as people who are constrained by fact, true truth and sound reasoning. 

The moral reasoning that those people assert is wrong. Flat out wrong for the reasons that Bok laid out decades ago. And therein lies the most important moral distinction between authoritarianism (kleptocratic autocracy, plutocracy and/or theocracy) and democracy. A corollary is that the mindset of most or nearly all chronic liars, slanderers and crackpotters are significantly more authoritarian (and kleptocratic) than democratic. People like this are not values voters in the context of democracy. They are the opposite because their moral values are rotted. 

The abstract of the research paper includes this:

In response to intense pressure, technology companies have enacted policies to combat misinformation. The enforcement of these policies has, however, led to technology companies being regularly accused of political bias. We argue that differential sharing of misinformation by people identifying with different political groups could lead to political asymmetries in enforcement, even by unbiased policies. We first analysed 9,000 politically active Twitter users during the US 2020 presidential election. Although users estimated to be pro-Trump/conservative were indeed substantially more likely to be suspended than those estimated to be pro-Biden/liberal, users who were pro-Trump/conservative also shared far more links to various sets of low-quality news sites—even when news quality was determined by politically balanced groups of laypeople, or groups of only Republican laypeople—and had higher estimated likelihoods of being bots. We find similar associations between stated or inferred conservatism and low-quality news sharing (on the basis of both expert and politically balanced layperson ratings) in 7 other datasets of sharing from Twitter, Facebook and survey experiments, spanning 2016 to 2023 and including data from 16 different countries. Thus, even under politically neutral anti-misinformation policies, political asymmetries in enforcement should be expected. (emphasis added)

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The Conversation published an interesting article about the mindset that some trolls have when they are doing their troll thing:

Some online conspiracy-spreaders don’t even 

believe the lies they’re spewing

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.

They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention.

In our chapter of a new book on extremism and conspiracies, my colleagues and I discuss evidence that certain extremist groups intentionally use conspiracy theories to entice adherents. They are looking for a so-called “gateway conspiracy” that will lure someone into talking to them, and then be vulnerable to radicalization. They try out multiple conspiracies to see what sticks.

When the Boogaloo Bois militia group showed up at the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, for example, members stated they didn’t actually endorse the stolen election conspiracy, but were there to “mess with the federal government.” Aron McKillips, a Boogaloo member arrested in 2022 as part of an FBI sting, is another example of an opportunistic conspiracist. In his own words: “I don’t believe in anything. I’m only here for the violence.”

In general, research has found that individuals with what scholars call a high “need for chaos” are more likely to indiscriminately share conspiracies, regardless of belief. These are the everyday trolls who share false content for a variety of reasons, none of which are benevolent. Dark personalities and dark motives are prevalent.

Plenty of regular people share content where they doubt the veracity, or know it is false.

These posts are common: Friends, family and acquaintances share the latest conspiracy theory with “could this be true?” queries or “seems close enough to the truth” taglines. Their accompanying comments show that sharers are, at minimum, unsure about the truthfulness of the content, but they share nonetheless. Many share without even reading past a headline. Still others, approximately 7% to 20% of social media users, share despite knowing the content is false. Why?

Often, folks are just looking for attention or other personal benefit. They don’t want to miss out on a hot-topic conversation. They want the likes and shares. They want to “stir the pot.” Or they just like the message and want to signal to others that they share a common belief system.

One can apply the same moral logic to trolls who knowingly spread false information for whatever reason. They are morally rotted. If people get hurt, they are evil. But I bet that most trolls like this don't care how society sees them or their moral character. After all, if they don't care about what they spew online, why would they care about their moral standing? These folks are not value voters. They are toxic parasites on democracy and society.