Adland must look beyond its bubble and show empathy, even to conspiracy theorists
5G conspiracy theories are dangerously fake news, which is exactly why we should be paying attention to them, and to the people who believe in them, says Daniella Murphy, Strategy Director at JUMP, Havas Media Group’s content and partnerships division.
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When Belgian GP Kris Van Kerckhoven sat down in January to talk to a journalist about coronavirus, he probably wasn’t imagining that his interview would get more than a few likes and comments.
Health concerns around 5G exposure have been voiced by the kind of celebs you’d usually ask to PR your client’s wholesome yoghurt brand.
It was such a casual piece, he said, that he didn’t even bother fact-checking it. Nonetheless, since his suggestion that 5G masts could be linked to Covid-19, a 5G conspiracy theory has rippled through Europe. At the time of writing, over 60 phone masts have been set on fire by people who believe the virus originated in Wuhan, China as a result of a government plot to accelerate the technology.
So far, so very David Icke, but this is dangerously mainstream stuff. Health concerns around 5G exposure have been voiced by the kind of celebs you’d usually ask to PR your client’s wholesome yoghurt brand; Amanda Holden, Eamonn Holmes, Amir Khan, even Woody Harrelson. We’re not talking about fringe groups here.
This is dangerously mainstream stuff.
And, increasingly, it’s not just phone masts bearing the brunt. Broadband workers report verbal and physical assault on a daily basis. Accused of being murderers resurrecting 'death towers', harassed and threatened. One worker even contracted coronavirus after he was spat at. The fact that it’s a baseless theory isn’t stopping a large group of people from feeling rage. They passionately believe that 5G is harmful.
Above: Celebrities including Eamonn Holmes, Amir Khan and Woody Harrelson have voiced concerns about the link between coronavirus and 5G.
I find it unsettling then, that since this started, media types have either ignored them or called them delusional. People on Facebook and neighbourhood WhatsApp groups share ‘Stop 5G’ links weekly and it doesn’t matter that one of the most prolific posters is an engineer; they’re ‘technophobes’, according to The Sun. Nor does it matter that those same WhatsApp groups contain the people mobilising food collections for NHS workers; they’re ‘crackpots’, according to the digital minister.
We should have learned our lessons about complacency and sneering at people during the Brexit referendum.
In the advertising industry, we see it one way, that 5G is a good and helpful thing; The latency! The haptic feedback! we exclaim excitedly in innovation workshops. Of course it has nothing to do with coronavirus. People with a different opinion? Well, they’re just idiots.
We should have learned our lessons about complacency and sneering at people during the Brexit referendum. As the Leave votes poured in that summer four years ago, La Croisette was shaking. Adland couldn’t comprehend what people outside the M25 were feeling, because it had dismissed them as stupid. Yet, here we are now, falling into a similar trap in our attitudes to others.
Like Brexit, this pandemic is a petri dish. Fear and uncertainty create the perfect conditions for conspiracies. Authorities can’t be trusted. Misinformation multiplies. Facts alone, no matter how comprehensively written, can’t defeat emotion.
Psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky points out that actual conspiracies do exist.
In his introduction to the recently published The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky points out that actual conspiracies do exist. Like how the tobacco industry deceived the public about the harmful health effects of smoking. Perhaps it’s crazier to think that brands and advertising execs should be trusted than it is to think that the world is run by lizards.
So, what to do?
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Above: The surprise result, to many at least, of the Brexit referendum should have taught the industry about being complacent.
Public interest groups have piled pressure on the likes of Facebook and Google to quash the 5G fake news, and the platforms have delivered. Go to Van Kerckhoven’s original video now, and you’ll see a black takedown notice. I commend the effort, but if we’re trying to stop people from drawing comparisons between coronavirus content and the Chinese government, I’m not sure that censorship is the way forward.
We don’t change people’s minds by being snide. And we won’t be able to fix much if we refuse to understand where people are coming from.
A good start would be to listen to the thoughts and fears of real people with a bit more empathy. As an industry, we talk a good game about the societal problems we can fix and the minds we can change. We don’t change people’s minds by being snide. And we won’t be able to fix much if we refuse to understand where people are coming from. 5G fears might blow over the way worries about 3G brain-frying potential did, but what about the next challenge? The climate crisis is looking at us, panicked.
Undoing self-righteousness is hard, but it’s the work we need to do.
I’m not the first person to call for more empathy (Reach Solutions’ Empathy Delusion did a brilliant job of reminding us of how far off we are), and it’s not something that comes easy. Undoing self-righteousness is hard, but it’s the work we need to do if we want people to buy our products or adopt our big ideas. People deserve our attention and respect, no matter how inconvenient their beliefs.
Solving big problems relies on us opening our minds and hearts to people who are different to us. If that fails, then I guess we could just build a massive lasagne.
