Jon Levitan and Andrew Hamm at SCOTUSblog decided to take advantage of Justice Ginsburg’s recent bout of lung cancer by conducting a study of conspiracy theorists who tweeted that Ginsburg had died, or was in a coma, and then surveying the online behavior of these same folks when Justice Ginsburg resumed her place on the bench:
Through January and February, we tracked 82 Twitter accounts with over 10,000 followers that tweeted claims or insinuations (including questions) about Ginsburg’s death or incapacity. The account with the most followers was that of actor James Woods (@RealJamesWoods), who at the time had 1.95 million followers and who tweeted on January 29, among other similar messages: “As citizens we have a right to a fully seated United States Supreme Court. The fact that #RuthBaderGinsberg [sic] is literally missing in action is troubling. Considerations of her personal well-being aside (we wish her good health), Americans need to be apprised of her viability.” This may seem like a simple inquiry, but it ignores the Supreme Court’s direct statements. An example of a more nefarious tweet comes from one user with 250,000 followers, who on February 8 tweeted a link to a YouTube video and the message: “WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS TRUTH ABOUT RUTH BADER GINSBURG HEALTH according to unconfirmed sources Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in a medically induced coma. They’ll keep her alive until the 2020 election if necessary.”
The last bit of wee sensationalism seems to be par for the course. What did Jon and Andrew find?
The accounts that we tracked and attempted to contact all have some measure of influence. We limited our search to accounts with more than 10,000 followers because we wanted to see how popular users — who are, presumably, concerned about their reputation and image — would react when confronted with the fact that conspiracy theories they pushed had been refuted. Only 16 percent publicly acknowledged Ginsburg’s return. Those who did not (80 percent of the accounts we tracked) have chosen to ignore or actively dispute evidence of her return to the court. (As explained, 4 percent of the tracked accounts were removed from consideration.)
This isn’t the first time that conspiracy theorists have targeted the Supreme Court, and it won’t be the last. We don’t want to draw any broad conclusion about conspiracy theories and how they evolve once their core arguments are proven wrong. We simply were interested to see how those who pushed this specific talking point reacted when the facts changed.
It’s an interesting, if unsurprising, commentary on those who are popular – they want to stay popular, and they’ll feed their audience the requisite red meat to satisfy that egotism. For most of them, truth or facts don’t play into that equation, all that matters is keeping their followers happy, which then leads to self-importance.
Sure, not all of them fell for it, but most did. It’s an interesting case study, and I enjoyed reading it.
