Facebook thrives on criticism of “disinformation”
Channeling an old po-mo saw, I&#x27;ve commented before to the effect that the social platforms picked &quot;disinformation&quot; as an enemy to persuade you that the rest was real.<p>To be a conspiracy theorist just means to not be aligned to the dominant narrative, and since most intelligent people gravitate toward coherence, when the dominant narrative becomes absurd, you get theories and explanations from the people repelled by it. They usually suck, but when deception prevails, conspiracy theories become the more coherent option and they have better predictive power than the narrative itself. Today, it is objectively more plausible that a cadre of leaders is co-ordinating to exploit a crisis to drive a radical agenda using arbitrary compliance as a signal and lever than it is that paper masks we can smell farts through are necessary to prevent the spread of disease. Gravitating to the former is the direct result of being repelled by the incoherence of the latter. To sustain the dissonance of the absurdities of power, it requires education and practice, because it does not come naturally to anyone. If you want to reduce conspiracy theories, present a coherent narrative that doesn&#x27;t require sustaining the dissonance of absurdities.<p>I like Doctorow&#x27;s writing, but if he isn&#x27;t banned, I&#x27;m pretty sure FB and other platforms have nothing to fear from him.