Online Filter Bubbles: Misinformation and Disinformation

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Sir Mark. I am very sorry to hear about the abuse that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has received. It is something that many of us unfortunately have experienced from time to time.

However, I want to start on a positive note and congratulate the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing the debate and coming up with a sensible suggestion, which has to be the basis of further consideration. He was right. The matter is very dangerous for democracy and is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed. He used the term “radicalised”, which is a good way of looking at how that affects people.

People can hold views that they might not have countenanced a few months ago. The effect of filter bubbles can be that, in effect, they become a totally different person and they are completely unaware of the process that they have been through. There should be greater openness with individuals about the type of content that is being pushed on to their timeline. If an individual user could see, for example—or better still, be directed to—the tags that they have amassed, that knowledge would be of great assistance. It would hopefully prevent people from passively entering the echo chamber that we have heard so much about, and, crucially, would alert people to the possibility that the process is happening at all.

Anyone who has talked to someone whose worldview has been altered by what they have seen online will know that they will not be persuaded that their view might not be accurate. They can make no distinction between information they have picked up online as opposed to from traditional media sources, and they truly believe what they are being told. I have seen the terror in a person’s eyes as they recounted to me a particular conspiracy theory. That fear was absolutely real, and there was no dissuading them.

How widespread is the problem? Some academic research says that about 2% of the population are in an alt-left echo chamber, and 5% in an alt-right one. Another survey found that about 10% of those in the UK claim to see only social media that agrees with their particular views. That seems quite low, but it is actually still millions of people. I believe it is far easier to fall into these traps than to get out of them, so the potential for the number to grow is there. Even on these relatively low numbers, their potential to influence society is corrosive.

Groups of people operating in a sphere with a different factual basis from wider society have implications for how our democracy works, not only in terms of their own participation but in how they can shape debate outside their echo chamber. Voices airing conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities have, as we learned last week, impacted Government policy. It was reported in The Guardian that Ministers began considering curbs on cycling and walking schemes last year in response to concerns about 15-minute cities. Conspiracy theorists believe that 15-minute cities are designed to be part of the “great reset”, under which people will be forcibly locked down within their own local neighbourhood and not allowed to travel outside of it. After gaining traction online among right-wing fringe groups, mainly in echo chambers, it found its way into a Government policy. One of the biggest shifts in transport policy in decades had its origins in online conspiracy theories. From that, we can see the potential it has to really impact on Government policy.

That is one reason why foreign powers have used prominent social media platforms to seek to influence elections and disrupt civic debate. We know from extensive investigations by the US and UK security organisations that Russian state security services conduct operations via social media in order to influence the results of elections. The potency of infiltrating echo chambers and manipulating those inside can have national consequences. We have elections across the world this year, including in this country and the United States, so tackling the issue now is incredibly important.

When I have constituents who seem to believe that I and the majority of people in this place are lizards, who believe that I want to deliberately stop them from moving about freely, or who recite to me with unwavering certainty any number of other examples of absurd but dangerous conspiracy theories, we have to take seriously the threat to the democratic process that this represents. It is no coincidence that many of those online conspiracy theories have very negative things to say about UK politicians and the political process; the people peddling this stuff have no interest in seeing western liberal democracies flourish. They want to see them fail. It is fair to ask whether democracy can function properly when people are so trapped in their own warped realities that they cannot see any other viewpoint than their own, they immediately distrust anything that comes from an official source, and they cannot agree with others on basic, previously uncontested, facts.

We know trust in politics and politicians is at an all-time low. Those who end up in online bubbles tend to have zero confidence in politicians and the political process. Some people might say, “Well, so what? There have always been people who do not trust authority. There have always been people who have a propensity to believe conspiracies and operate outside the mainstream of society.” It is clear that those numbers are on the rise, their influence is growing, and there is a concerted effort by people hostile to this country to increase their ranks.

We cannot afford to be blasé. Our liberal democracy is fragile enough as it is, and it cannot be taken for granted. It has to be protected, defended and supported by us in this place as the guardians of democracy. It is not enough for us to be simply participants in the political process; we need to be its guardians. In this place, we debate and argue over interpretation of facts, but we do so within a framework where we are at least debating within the same reality. We also share a common understanding that if our arguments do not succeed on this occasion, the democratic process ensures that we will have another chance sometime. However, having so many and growing numbers of people who do not share the same reality as us and do not think that democracy works represents a real threat to democracy as a whole. We should not write those people off: we should try to engage with them as much as possible. However, we must also take on the source of their discomfort, challenge their beliefs and really lift the lid on who is pushing the disinformation and why. If we ignore that, it will grow, and before we know it there will be enough people sufficiently motivated to take matters into their own hands that this will not be just a dark corner of the internet: it will be on every street corner, and by then it will be too late.