#Groupthink

[unsolicited-opinions]

We've Made Changing Your Mind Look Like a Flaw Instead of a Virtue

The internet has taught people to archive your opinions and weaponize your growth. If you evolve, you're a flip-flopper. If you admit uncertainty, you're weak. If you take time to rethink, you're stalling.

So people fake certainty to avoid punishment.

Intellectual honesty, though, requires change. If your views haven't changed in ten years, that says less about your clarity than it says about your lack of reflection.

[poisondepoetry]

12 Angry Men is a fascinating look at how fragile justice becomes when filtered through personal bias, ego, and group pressure.

jurors 2, 5, 6, 9, and 11 adjust their verdicts according to the group’s direction ~a perfect illustration of "conformity"~ they’re the second favorite type of people for dictators who wear the mask of democracy.

~the first are the sheep: those who follow blindly, never asking why~

jurors 7 and 12 represent a different issue ~indifference. Juror 12 was literally doodling during the deliberation, as if someone’s life was just a casual office break.

the immediate vote of “guilty” from several jurors was based almost entirely on eyewitness accounts. But after learning about the Kay Robinson case, I’ve become deeply skeptical of any testimony presented as absolute truth.

there’s a great article in Scientific American titled “Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts”, which explores this beautifully.

and Juror 8? He wasn’t defending the boy. He was simply doing what a true juror should: questioning, analyzing, and refusing to be rushed by pressure.

The film reminds us that justice doesn’t belong to the loudest voice ~ it belongs to the one that keeps thinking when others stop.

[susanoos-wife]

One of the most brainless arguments against taking covid precautions, such as wearing a mask in certain public spaces, is that masking is for conformist sheep-numerous polls conducted in the last several years have shown time and time again that people who take any sort of precautions against covid are in the minority and that people who wear a mask in public are an extreme minority. If you don't believe me, go out in public and tell me how many people you see wearing a mask-I can guarantee you that unless you're at some kind of political protest or the air quality outside is bad enough to turn the sky orange juice orange (like it has in a handful of days in the last few summers due to smoke and pollution from wildfires,) that number will be a very, very small number.

[thepersonalwords]

Universal opinions are often mistaken for universal principles

Seth Czerepak, The 24 Hour Marketing Miracle: The FIRST Marketing Book EVER to Be Backed Up By a 500% Money Back Guarantee

[mycptsdstory]

Found this on twitter.

[cazort]

does anyone else feel a visceral disgust at the word "normie"?

like here we are, the weirdos, labeled negatively by society, placed into the out-group and looked down on by people who are banding together based on their shared behavior.

and someone gets the brilliant idea that we can solve our woes by inventing a new word that takes all these same things that the rest of society does to us and allows us to start doing it ourselves.

it reminds me of the people who "leave" fundamentalist religion but somehow the one thing about the value system they hold onto is the idea "i'm right, you're wrong". i'm sorry to break it to you, but you've become the thing you supposedly hate. and i don't know about you but that's not the direction i am trying to grow in.

[jccheapalier]

Snoop Dogg Seems To Be The Moral Compass For These Black Liberals 🤦‍♀️| ...

[musicalmoritz]

BSD Fandom Groupthink

Note: At some point during this yap session I mention my dislike for the Atsushi and Lucy ship. This is not a shipping essay but it is mentioned, and I’m pretty blunt about it, so if that’s going to bother you please just scroll. I also mention Hisoka for like a sentence so TW

It’s very interesting to me how fandoms can shape individual opinions via groupthink. The first time I watched bsd, I understood the themes perfectly. I really admired Dazai’s character arc for his growth towards the light, and how he was able to use the harmful skills he learned in the mafia for good. I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy when his past with Akutagawa was revealed, but I accepted it as a necessary part of both of their character arcs. I didn’t dwell on that or him leaving Chuuya behind in the mafia, because I understood that his character was meant to be morally gray and that the bad things he does move the story along (same with characters like Mori and Fukuchi). I viewed the core themes of the story as overwhelmingly hopeful, to the point that it got a little cheesy even for me. And I want to reiterate that I had nothing but positive feelings towards Dazai

Then I get on TikTok and- *heavy sigh*. Then I get on TikTok and all I see are Dazai hate posts. He’s still the most popular character so I’m not trying to pull the “woe is me” card saying it’s rare to like him or anything. But I was genuinely confused because the overall attitude towards this character I had never even been mildly annoyed with was “ohmygod when will this gross bitch shut up.” I say gross because of the overload of jokes abt him not changing his bandages. It was basically the same post over and over again, even the guy’s fans couldn’t stand him. Granted, a lot of it was jokes, but the joke had gone to the extent that saying anything to contradict it was deemed a sign of poor reading comprehension. After all, they did have some credibility. Dazai has done a lot of bad things, so if you don’t hate him at least a little then obviously that means you support abuse

Now, as someone who was new to the fandom and wanted to fit it, I quickly conformed to this mindset. I felt bad for Chuuya because Dazai abandoned him, even tho before I entered the fandom I had never once paused to question how Dazai leaving impacted Chuuya. I acted frustrated with Dazai for abusing Akutagawa, even tho I had previously thought that was a very interesting plot point that added a lot to both characters. I slandered Dazai every time I talked about him, which confused one of my friends since she remembered me initially loving him. For a bit, I even called Chuuya my favorite character because that was more acceptable than saying Dazai (nowadays you get called basic for having either of them as a fave so me and Chuuya fans are in the same boat)

It wasn't until I found other Dazai fans that actually understood his character that I realized it was okay to stand by my own opinions. This sort of snapped me out of that hive mindset and made me realize that I'd been subconsciously changing my opinions to fit in with the fandom. It helped me to take a step back and to my own analyses, make my own assessments. I was able to disagree with Dazai defenders more easily than I initially could with the rest of the fandom because I felt encouraged to start thinking for myself again

I know what some of you are probably thinking, "Roxy, it sounds like you were just being a pussy," and I was. But the thing is, this wasn't usual for me. I joined the bsd fandom after years of doing my own heated analysis for other fandoms and priding myself on being different. So it's weird to me that bsd is the fandom that made me a sheep. I will say that the bsd fandom has an insane amount of discourse, more than other fandoms even, and they can't really handle other people having different interpretations. This is true of a lot of TikTok fandoms tho, and I got TikTok as I was getting into bsd so it could just be that I chose the wrong platform (Tumblr bsd fans are literally so much better I love ya'll)

Another moment of cognitive dissonance I had was with shipping. I don’t often talk about ships I dislike so if that’s going to offend you, look away now (I’ve given two disclaimers know pls don’t come for me)

When I first watched bsd, I absolutely hated the Atsushi and Lucy romance. I thought it was so forced, and that they were essentially the Chipmunk/Chipette versions of each other. My sister agreed with me so we just kind of made faces whenever they were on screen together. That’s not to say I hated either of their characters, I actually loved both of them a lot. Just not together yk

But when I got on TikTok…holy shit people defend that pairing with their lives. And no shade, I’ll always support people defending something they love. The problem is so many of the shippers followed the rhetoric of “we have to protect the innocent straight ship from the evil gay one.” It really rubbed me the wrong way and didn’t do anything to increase my enjoyment of the ship. In fact I don’t have many straight bsd ships for that reason, I don’t like how they’re viewed as the only healthy ones in order to put down the queer ships. This is coming from someone who’s a big fan of a lot of straight ships, I just can’t really stomach a lot of the bsd ones. At first I even viewed Tachihara and Gin as siblings but I got over that interpretation was I found out abt Aku and Gin being siblings. Nowadays, if I had to pick a favorite straight bsd ship it would most definitely be Tachi//Gin, I think they’re super cute

Got a little off subject there so onto the cognitive dissonance. Just like with Dazai, I pretended to like the straight ships that the fandom protected so dearly. I sought out edits and scrolled to the comments only to immediately find people bringing up rival queer ships for the characters…literally every single time. I looked at headcanon posts and scrolled through ship accounts to try and see the appeal. Then one day I had to take a step back and ask myself why I was looking at content for a ship I didn’t like. Why did I care so much about making myself like something that clearly wasn’t for me? My favorite ships were already the most popular, so wasn’t I already conforming? Why did I feel the need to conform more, when my personal ships weren’t impacting these people whatsoever??

This even led me to abandon ships I once loved. I dropped a Kouyou and Yosano fic I was reading because I saw so many posts about how the ship is lesbiphobic and shallow. This is particularly upsetting because femslash is obviously very important to me, and without Kou//sano I didn’t find a lot of it in the bsd fandom. Rest assured, I’m back to loving the ship, but it took me way to long to accept that I was allowed to like something other fans deemed problematic…which is a lesson I thought I already knew. I was a fucking Hisoka fan before I watched or read bsd, you’d think I would know a thing or two about unpopular opinions

I recognize that a lot of this is personal issues, I am a people pleaser to a fault. But since I’ve learned to stop this behavior, I’ve begun recognizing it in others more and more. Fans who repeat other people’s arguments when they haven’t done any analysis themselves. Fans who admit to pretending to like popular things just so they won’t get “cancelled.” Fandoms, especially the bsd fandom, having mass trends of hating on or loving one specific thing. And a questionable number of fans who seem to agree with everything the fandom says

Guys. You’re not gonna get cancelled for having a different opinion. Okay, if you like Mori you might (Mori fans I’m literally so sorry for ya’ll, you guys have it so rough). But guess what? That’s okay. Do not sacrifice something you enjoy or try to force yourself to like something you don’t just to appease strangers on the internet. It may sound small since we’re talking abt fictional characters here, but these habits will set you up for independent thinking later on in life. Professors and employers admire individuals who are able to think for themselves. People in general admire others who can think for themselves. Also fandom is something that should be fun, you shouldn’t stress yourself out over a difference of opinion. I got into bsd during a pretty vulnerable time in my life so it’s no wonder it took me awhile to strengthen my own opinions. If you’re a person like me who attaches the things you love so much to your identity, it can be hard to see people shitting on those things. You either double down or conform. Either way your harmless opinion has no tangible impact on anyone else in the fandom so it’s much better to stand by your own preferences

So the message here is don’t be a little bitch, develop a mind of your own. And also the TikTok BSD fandom sucks ass

[sepdet]

Remember when some redditors propped up Gamestop stock to prank Wall Street traders…

only to become an apocalyptic cult, appointing the failed CEO of a pet supply shop as their oracle

and themselves as the righteous faithful out to expose Wall Street corruption through the beleaguered vessels of Gamestop and Bed Bath and Beyond, whose second coming will crash the market and allow the real (not fake) stock owners to exploit a glitch that grants them infinite money, lets them hold the world monetary system to ransom, forces the US government to accede to all their demands, anoints them god-kings, and transforms the world.

No really. This is a comic, tragic, what-the-fuck-is-happening-you-can't-be-serious-oh-hell-they-are-serious video that I highly recommend, along the same lines as that "A BOOMERANG!" takedown of Sherlock. It's funny but it's long, good background for knitting, phone games, or doing chores.

(The author's "Line Go Up" vid on crypto and nfts is also amazing— but more sobering, as their cultists proponents really do have some impact on the real world.)

[unsolicited-opinions]

I was called a genocide denier for *checks notes* telling some fans to stop being bigoted towards Jews.

"Hey it's really important to not target a minority with dehumanization and bigotry-"

"GENOCIDE DENIER!"

It's the exact same silencing tactic the Right has used for decades now. Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts and when you're confronted on your shitty behavior. Yell some buzzword, make wild accusations, beat your chest.

You're right - that is the exact same silencing  tactic. 

This has a name.

It's called Moral Bludgeoning.

It's using a false binary morality as a tool to gain an advantage in a disagreement, rather than engaging in reasoned discourse.

The goal of the tactic isn't truth, understanding, or justice. It's enforcing obedience. Control through social punishment.

You said something they found threatening - that people in a supposedly righteous movement were behaving in a way that was, in fact, bigoted.

Grappling with that would require introspection, accountability, and nuance...and their movement punishes those things. 

You were pointing out information which doesn't fit into their binary, the binary which assures them they're good people. They needed to shut you up fast before they risked feeling less than utterly righteous. 

The people doing this often aren't stupid , but they're always frightened.

They're terrified of complexity which muddies the narrative.

Terrified of being cast out of their peer group for failing to adhere to the narrative.

Terrified of losing control of the narrative, because most of them derive their sense of personal legitimacy from the narrative.

So they flatten. Nuance becomes complicity. Dissent becomes betrayal. Complexity or moral ambiguity become denial.

You're also right that Moral Bludgeoning is used by both the right and the left. 

Both extremes use it to keep the middle silent. 

On the far Right, you see this play out in culture war accusations:

Criticize police abuse? You must be a Marxist anarchist terrorist!

Question US military spending? You hate America!

Say trans people should have rights? You're grooming children.

On the far Left, it’s the same energy, but different buzzwords:

Ask for civility toward Jewish people? You're a genocide apologist.

Note that Hamas isn't progressive? You’re a racist colonialist.

Point out antisemitism in "anti-Zionist" spaces? You're weaponizing your trauma to silence Palestinians.

It's never about the truth, it's about making the social cost of nuance unbearable. 

Tactics like Moral Bludgeoning are enforcement mechanisms of rigid ideologies. 

Healthy movements can tolerate disagreement, but ideologically rigid movements (right or left!) treat any deviation as a threat.

That's why you'll hear the same people screaming about "freedom of speech" one minute, then shrieking “DENIER” the next.

It's not even really hypocrisy in their minds, because they believe their cause grants them moral supremacy which entitles them to do almost anything. And that includes the entitlement to silence you in the name of righteous justice...and to be as antisemtic as they like.

The real power of this tactic is in how it bypasses reasoning entirely and goes straight to two of our most powerful emotions: shame and fear. 

You nailed this too:

"Be loud and obnoxious in the face of facts..." 

The louder and more confident the accusation, the more it floods the emotional bandwidth of the conversation, making any reasoned dialogue impossible.

It works because people fear social isolation more than factual errors. No one wants to be the next target, so the mob roars together to drown you out.

The tragedy is that you were trying to do what they claim to care about. 

You didn't defend war crimes or deny suffering. 

You were doing the thing that movements need in order to remain sane: holding your own side accountable to its stated values.

Movements sometimes die from internal intolerance and ideological purity tests.

I think this is part of why the SDS movement of the 60s and 70s fizzled out. I think Occupy Wall Street fell victim to endless internal policing around privilege, language, and ideological orthodoxy and meetings devolved into ritual purity checks instead of coming up with and promoting actual policy ideas. I think this is a good explanation for what brought about the Reign of Terror.

The inability to tolerate nuance is where intellectual rot begins.

The people who did this to you aren't fighting oppression. They're just enforcing ideological purity at the expense of reality. It's an old and stupid game.

Can I tell you, though, how much I appreciate this Ask?

It's more evidence that there are many in the large middle who are repulsed by both ends of the Horseshoe. There are many who still care about evidence, reason, pragmatism, and avoiding ideological groupthink. 

There are still people who know that justice requires complexity. There are still people who don't think standing up against antisemitism is something to be ashamed of. 

Thinking critically and voicing those thoughts makes you feel like a threat to people on either far end of the political spectrum, all who rely on false binaries and performative loyalty.

So keep doing it.

Let them rage. Let them shriek their buzzwords. Just hold the line. 

You saw clearly and quickly that this was not about justice, it was about obedience...and you didn't bend the knee.

Do you have any idea how much that pisses them off?

Well done, Anon.

------

Edited to add this great example I got within hours of posting this:

[unwelcome-ozian]

Coercive persuasion in cults is combined with groupthink. Groupthink is a mode of thinking in which individual members of groups accept a viewpoint that matches a perceived consensus, regardless of whether they believe it to be valid, correct or optimal (Schmidt 2016). Groups and organizations that engage in groupthink and strong culture are notorious for bad decision making, because they involve collectives of people who are all thinking the same way (Gass 2018). Cult leaders can utilize groupthink to continuously maintain the structure of the misbeliefs of the group. By having several highly devoted followers exhibited, the rest of the group will likely follow along. This is how cult leaders strengthen their groups quickly and efficiently.

According to (West 1990), the persuasive techniques utilized by totalist cults to exploit and keep their members are not magical, but are sufficiently powerful to ensure that most of the people approached are recruited with high retention rates. The persuasiveness of cults is a genuine menace to society, as they use the most dire persuasive techniques to manipulate people. “Cult (totalist type): a group or movement exhibiting a great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing, and employing unethical manipulative or coercive techniques of persuasion and control (e.g., isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility and subservience, powerful group pressures, information management, promotion of total dependency on the group and fear of leaving it, suspension of individuality and critical Judgement and so on) designed to advance the goals of the group’s leaders, to the possible or actual detriment of members, their families, or the community (West 1990).

[willowsearth]

The Psychology of Conformity: Why We Follow the Crowd and When We Shouldn’t

🔍 Why Do We Conform? Ever found yourself agreeing with the majority even when you weren’t sure? Maybe you’ve nodded along in a meeting, followed a trend, or stayed silent in a debate—just to fit in. 💡 Conformity is a powerful social force that shapes our decisions, often without us realizing it. While it can create harmony, it can also suppress individuality and critical thinking. 🚀 In my latest blog, I explore: ✅ The psychology behind conformity (normative vs. informational influence) ✅ Why cognitive dissonance tricks us into justifying our choices ✅ How to resist social pressure and encourage diverse perspectives ✅ 3 key strategies for better group collaboration 👉 Read the full article here: 🔗 [Insert Blog Link] 💬 Have you ever conformed in a way you later regretted? Or have you successfully resisted group pressure? Let’s discuss in the comments! #Psychology, #Conformity, #GroupInfluence, #SocialPsychology, #CognitiveDissonance, #Leadership, #DecisionMaking, #Teamwork, #CriticalThinking, #BehavioralPsychology

Have you ever found yourself agreeing with the majority even when you had doubts? Maybe you’ve stayed silent in a meeting, laughed at a joke you didn’t find funny, or gone along with a decision you weren’t fully on board with. Welcome to the fascinating world of conformity—a powerful social force that shapes our behaviors, decisions, and even our sense of self. Understanding why we conform and…

[aowski]

“People inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control.” —Fr Richard Rohr 

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Sabrina Joy Stevens

Published: Dec 18, 2024

How I got out of the industry, and how you can protect yourself from it

A few years ago, as funders started throwing money at anyone willing to address the purported role of disinformation in Donald Trump’s 2016 election, many advocacy organizations, academics, political operatives, and media professionals dove into the counter-disinformation business. As a former employee of one such organization and later as an independent consultant and trainer, I saw that business up close. While I'll always support individuals and organizations doing responsible work to overcome divisiveness and deception in civic life, I feel the need to warn people about the dishonest and partisan industry that has sprung up around “fighting disinformation.”

My encounter with Groupthink, Inc.

I’m a storyteller, strategist, trainer, and educator dedicated to civil and human rights, whose practice is rooted in social and cognitive psychology. I’ve been working on digital platforms since their invention. There, I’ve spent years contending with how age-old political manipulation tactics manifest in new media environments.

This background gave me some unique opportunities to work alongside researchers and practitioners formalizing the study of mis-, dis- and malinformation. In turn, this eventually led to opportunities to work within the “counter-disinformation” field. Some independent reporters have dubbed this field the “censorship-industrial complex.” I like to think of it as the enforcement wing of Groupthink, Inc.

Groupthink, Inc. is the cumulative effect of the subset of academics, activists, political operatives, and media professionals devoted to the manufacture, marketing, and enforcement of a social and political consensus that flatters their self-perceptions, aligns with their ideological preferences, and exalts them into positions of undeserved power. These academics, activists, operatives, and media people, supported by funding from Big Philanthropy and the government, have pushed identity politics, luxury beliefs, and all manner of related nonsense on Western societies over the past few decades, particularly since the mid-2010s. Their efforts have created a manufactured consensus about race, gender, sexuality, class, and innumerable other topics. (See Figure 1.)

[ Figure 1: How Groupthink, Inc. manufactures consensus ]

In hindsight, I should have known from the jump that the field of counter-disinformation would be a mess. How, exactly, could an industry populated primarily by people who espouse the postmodernist belief that “all truth is relative” effectively oppose the rise of “alternative facts”? They are two sides of the same counterfeit coin.

However, when I entered the counter-disinformation field, circa 2019, I was still too caught up in the leftwing worldview that pervades it to recognize the inherent problem. Plus, my entry into the industry started out plausibly enough, initially around clearly-defined civic processes. Did I want to do something about bad actors telling confused voters the wrong election dates or scaring them out of being counted in the Census? Of course I did. And especially post-2020, as I became increasingly disillusioned by partisan/ideologically-driven advocacy but unsure of what to do with myself, I was excited to use my skills as a narrative strategist to boost what should ideally have been nonpartisan efforts.

But as the efforts in which I found myself engaged sprawled to ever hazier, more partisan and ideologically-driven topics, the more frustrated and troubled I became. One thing that really pushed me over the edge was the conversation that arose when The Washington Post (Figure 2) shamed women for allegedly spreading misinformation about birth control pills on the internet. These women were taking to TikTok and other platforms to discuss the weight gain, anxiety, and depression they experienced after starting hormonal birth control…all of which is information that you can literally find on these medications’ package inserts.

[ Figure 2 ]

By labelling these women’s accounts of their experiences “misinformation,�� The Washington Post abused the term. We live in an age of informational warfare and it is critical that we have accurate terms and language to discuss this phenomenon so that we can deal with it. But a variety of actors, including media organizations like The Washington Post, seem to be working overtime to render that language meaningless by attaching terms like “misinformation” and “disinformation” to anything that doesn’t fit their political prejudices, their financial interests, or their cultural preferences. In the process, they are destroying public trust in the media and our other collective sense-making institutions.

As time went on and I continued to question myself, my industry colleagues, and the shaky academic foundation our counter-disinformation work was built upon, it eventually became undeniably clear that regardless of their stated intentions, people working in this industry are fundamentally unable to do what they claim they’re trying to do. Why?

Why the counter-disinformation industry fails

For starters, people who adhere to an ideological framework—leftism, progressivism, wokism, whatever you want to call it—that’s grounded in an assumption that there is no such thing as objective truth have literally no basis to label anything as mis- or disinformation. (A clear example of this conflict can be seen in their embrace of the hollow, ever-shifting concept of “gender” over the stable, powerful reality of biological sex.) In order to even begin to approach this work with any kind of consistency, the overwhelming majority of people working in this field would have to abandon their ideological priors. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Moreover, their unwillingness to consider that they or the “experts” they agree with might be wrong, to humbly listen to those they disagree with, to be appropriately skeptical of politically-aligned public officials, or to remain curious about what objective evidence actually shows us about various issues makes it all but impossible for them to consistently distinguish truth from falsehood even if they earnestly wanted to. Indeed, while I still think most people working in this field genuinely want to be helpful, their hubris undercuts even their best intentions.

Intentionally or not, by deciding in advance that they know what kinds of people are or are not credible, rather than seeking and following actual evidence wherever it leads, they’ve shielded themselves from feedback from reality while replicating the same problem that already exists at multiple levels of our sense-making institutions: when they’re not busy denying that truth exists, they’re mistaking a manufactured consensus for truth. Worse, their attempts to police so-called “mis-” and “disinformation” (which, in practice, means anything that deviates from that distorted consensus) essentially extend that shield against reality to the rest of society. As we’ve seen again and again over the past few years, that’s had serious consequences for our health, safety, and freedom of expression.

I know much of this comes as no surprise to independent or conservative observers of the disinformation industry over the past few years, and I hope you’ll take some comfort in a bit of confirmation and validation from a former participant. But I’m speaking up now primarily for the sake of folks who may have missed—or more likely, dismissed—existing reporting or investigations because they came from people whose perspectives you’ve been conditioned by Groupthink, Inc. to ignore or mistrust. If you can’t hear it from them, perhaps you can hear it from me: someone who truly wanted to believe the best about these efforts, but was eventually so frustrated by what I saw that I forfeited income rather than continue to participate in it.

Left-wing bias in the counter-disinformation industry

Many journalists, researchers, and other professionals working in and around the counter-disinformation industry claim and earnestly believe, like I once did, that they are doing important work to protect freedom, fight bigotry, and clean up our information environment. From what I’ve seen, there isn’t any grand conspiracy here so much as a deeply prideful failure to consider the shortcomings of their own and their peers’ knowledge, or their own biases.

And those biases are significant. This field is heavily dominated by people on the left. I have watched people in the counter-disinformation industry take significant precautions to protect themselves from public scrutiny, which they typically dismiss as right-wing attacks, regardless of the political affiliation of those trying to scrutinize them. But I have never seen anybody in this field take any steps to protect the public from the impact of their own biases. I’ve encountered multiple squads of researchers and firms using very sophisticated technology to monitor alleged disinformation, but they’re almost exclusively focused on right-leaning targets, instead of scanning for false and misleading information from every political perspective.

Even more troubling, I have yet to encounter a counter-disinformation researcher whose job it was to independently verify what exactly counts as accurate information versus what constitutes dis- or misinformation. Instead, their default stance is to take the words of “experts” or public officials as fact, if they even stop to consider what’s true versus false at all.

Now, that’s not necessarily a big deal when it comes to concrete, clearly defined things like election dates or census-taking processes. But it’s a huge deal when it comes to rapidly changing and uncertain issues like pandemic response, nuanced issues like climate science, or ideologically-inflected issues like how to help children who say they’re distressed about their biological sex. On issues like these many in the counter-disinformation space have actively spread misinformation while suppressing better information that challenges their political preferences and biases.

Likewise, it is really important to recognize that especially in abstract academic fields that don’t have clear-cut, objective standards, the “experts” are a pretty ideologically slanted group. For decades now, left-leaning academics and professionals have dominated research spaces in most academic fields (see Figure 3), while activists on both ends of the political spectrum have waged campaigns, often vicious, against researchers whose findings they consider inconvenient. What emerges as expert consensus under these distorted and distorting conditions can’t just be assumed to be accurate. Those pressures toward conformity, censorship, and self-censorship affect who is given opportunities to do research, what kinds of questions they feel free to pursue, how they interpret their findings, and how they present those findings or whether they even do present them.

[ Figure 3: Number of Democratic Faculty Members for Every Republican in 25 Academic Fields (source). ]

Consensus vs. truth

It’s crucial to remember that consensus and truth are two different things. Consensus can emerge around true observations of reality, but expert consensus on complex issues, or on simple issues that have been made to seem complex by people with misguided beliefs or agendas, can also emerge as a result of excluding dissenting voices, pressuring people to conform for fear of losing relationships or careers, or even threats to their safety.

I’ve yet to encounter other people in this counter-disinformation space who actually stopped to consider this distinction between consensus and truth. When I asked disinformation-industry folks how they discern truth, I was repeatedly told that I was the first person they’d encountered in this space to even ask those kinds of questions. None of them had solid answers, yet that didn’t stop any of them from accepting huge grants and contracts, continuing to advise influential organizations and campaigns, or attempting to influence laws and platform policies governing Big Tech across multiple continents.

And that’s really my biggest concern. For too many people in this industry, ideological conformity preempts the pursuit of evidence. They are so used to ideologically skewed campuses and professional organizations, and so accustomed to hearing certain perspectives and opinions echoed throughout the media and culture, that they reflexively treat ideas that conform to their political and ideological expectations as being synonymous with truth itself. And then they partner with other influential organizations, media outlets, public officials, and Big Tech to enforce that conformity, stifling the free flow of information we need to make important personal and collective decisions. Pressure from people in networks like these are why tech platforms sometimes hide, demonetize, or just ban content and users that challenge deceptive activist dogma presented as expert consensus on issues like gender ideology or abortion. It’s why even accomplished experts with robust evidence-based findings have been stifled for challenging powerful people’s preferred narratives on things like pandemic response or environmental policy.

This has had serious costs for many people. From the vulnerable young people whose bodies are permanently damaged by harmful drugs and surgeries, to the scholars whose careers have been up-ended for sharing unpopular recommendations, to society as a whole when we’re denied important or politically inconvenient information that pierces the illusion of consensus.

How to avoid misinformation from Groupthink, Inc.

Despite their stated intentions, the counter-disinformation industry does not promote truth. It promotes conformity and groupthink. That’s why those of us who care about having more honest and productive public conversations need to get serious about protecting free speech and promoting viewpoint diversity.

To individuals: To state what should be obvious, you can’t know everything or read or replicate every study yourself. That’s why it’s really important to be intentional about how you approach information instead of defaulting to the common habit of letting ideology become your mental shortcut for filtering new information. If your goal is to better understand the world, beware of getting your information from committed partisans or organizations that prioritize ideology over evidence. Instead, learn all you can about the fields you work in and the topics that interest you most; build relationships and exchange ideas with a diverse range of thoughtful people who know more about what you know less about; and curate news and information from a wide range of sources. I know this last bit is particularly challenging these days. Ground News is one of the best news resources for this purpose that I have found.

To research teams and non-profit organizations: If you’re genuinely nonpartisan, ask yourselves, do you have viewpoint diversity? No individual is correct all the time and no group of completely like-minded people is going to be right all the time, either. Viewpoint diversity and a culture that promotes logic and evidence over conformity is your best protection against misinformation and the self-deception bred by groupthink.

Platforms: Please refocus on protecting users from harassment, violence, and self-harm. Do not let government officials or activists bully you into policing alleged disinformation, particularly on topics where public knowledge is still contested or is rapidly evolving. Platform policies and content moderation decisions about non-violent speech should not be influenced by government officials, much less by unelected, unaccountable activists, who don’t even bother to question what is or isn’t true. Mistrust and confusion only grow when you restrict the free flow of information and undermine people’s livelihoods for not conforming to the preferred narratives of government officials or special interest groups.

To journalists, researchers, and everyone else in the counter-disinformation industry: Please have some humility and self-awareness. Just because a certain narrative or set of claims suits your political and cultural preferences, that doesn’t mean it’s true. Don’t get mad when critics call you out for mislabeling disagreement as disinformation, when that’s exactly what you’re doing by refusing to check your own biases, question official narratives, or examine what passes for expert consensus in a politically distorted research environment.

In sum, it’s not that there’s no mis- or disinformation out there. Far from it! But the disinformation industry as it currently operates serves Groupthink, Inc. much more than it serves the public. Indeed, it is often one of the greatest purveyors of mis- and disinformation in our information ecosystem! In this article, I’ve tried to spell out why this is so, and offer steps that all actors, from private citizens to disinformation-industry organizations, can take to bring more balance and truth to the information landscape.

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Sabrina Joy Stevens is a recovering ideologue, still-dedicated storyteller, strategist, and trainer serving causes, campaigns, and companies committed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She has dedicated her whole life to human and civil rights, and has been heartbroken by how she and many others in these fields have unwittingly helped to undermine these rights and destabilize our societies in the process. As a former leftist with 20+ years of experience with political organizing and advocacy, she has seen the good, the bad, and the VERY ugly of movement-building. Her Substack, Leaving Groupthink, Inc. (where a version of this article first appeared), is part real-time memoir, part public conversation, and part strategy session. She envisions it as a project dedicated to reclaiming our good sense and society from the ugly, namely the demoralizing industry she’s nicknamed Groupthink, Inc. Check out her website, where you’ll find links to her Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok accounts, as well as information about the professional services she offers.

[toyax]

In the realm of experts, no one wants to be the student

Everyone claims to be a guru, a guide,

individuality's lost, as groupthink takes its stride.

Red pills promise secrets, passport bros offer escape,

Relationship experts peddle formulas, femininity coaches shape,

But true connection's missing, as people conform and comply,

Groupthink's weak embrace, suffocating individuality's sigh.

In this sea of sameness, where everyone's an expert too,

No one wants to listen, to learn from me and you,

They’re all just bobble heads, with useless opinions..

Groupthink is for sheep; I only run with wolves..

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Groupthink

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs. This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.

Groupthink is a construct of social psychology, but has an extensive reach and influences literature in the fields of communication studies, political science, management, and organizational theory, as well as important aspects of deviant religious cult behaviour.

______________________________

Confirmation bias

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