A quarter of people in the UK believe Covid was or was probably a hoax (as well as believing other conspiracy theories)

[cakeorwine]

Quarter in UK believe Covid was a hoax, poll on conspiracy theories finds | Social trends | The Guardian

"The UK is home to millions more conspiracy theorists than most people realise, with almost a quarter of the population believing Covid-19 was probably or definitely a hoax, polling has revealed.
About a third of the population are convinced that the cost of living crisis is a government plot to control the public, and similar numbers think “15-minute cities” – an attempt to increase walking in neighbourhoods – are a government surveillance ruse, and that the “great replacement theory” – the idea that white people are being replaced by non-white immigrants – is happening."

I guess that there are people out there who believe in conspiracy theories - but I am very surprised by the numbers.

I wonder what the cross over is between theories - in other words, if you believe 1 conspiracy theory, you are more likely to believe another?

I don’t believe Covid was a planned hoax but I do believe in the old saying “never let a good crisis go to waste”.

Just look at the enormous transfer of wealth and power which happened during the pandemic, the lies, the deliberate fearmongering. It not at all surprising that people are now cynical.

I don't think that many people can possibly think the whole thing was a hoax, as in, covid doesn't exist? I certainly don't see that in the conspiracy chats.

I think a lot of people think it was probably a lab leak in origin, and of course that in itself was classed as a conspiracy theory for about 2 years, and so the lies and censorship about that lead quite nicely into a feeling that 'all is not what it seems'.

Why was it important to not talk about the possibility of the lab leak? It is not saying the whole thing is a hoax, it is asking questions in the pursuit of some form of truth.

I'd like to know about this research that is being done in these labs, given a leak can impact us all, we should be aware and in agreement that this sort of thing goes on - and we are all accepting of the risks?

It is the lies that have got us to this stage. That, and as people are doing on this thread, calling people who don't automatically toe the party line (in this case 'The Science') stupid and ignorant.

I came across the Meghan was never pregnant one for the first time the other day. Those people are nuts.

The new one taking Twitter by storm is that Michelle Obama is a trans woman

I literally can't help myself taking a look at all the chat around it!

Just like the number of deaths from car crashes are inflated. You die from a cerebral hemorrhage as a consequence of the crash.

The problem was incoherence, too lax in some areas while too stringent in others. At some point, you had to quarantine if you went abroad for a hiking trip in the mountains but not if you took the tube several times a day while it was packed.

That's because 1/4 of the population are fucking thick. Never underestimate how stupid people are as a whole.

Well they didn’t ask me.

I don’t think COVID was a hoax but lockdown was a massive overreaction and it was certainly a convenient experiment in population control and just how easy it is to get people to bark on command and turn on those who don’t.

In this thread there is a link to an article, a link to the report prepared as a press release.

With a bit of critical thinking you can find out who wrote the report and search for published, peer reviewed papers by the same author. When you have read all related papers, you can start to judge the validity of this report representing a good cross section of the population.

Again - they didn’t ask me.

Did anyone else get asked?

18% of people surveyed - which does not reflect population thinking

This is why we need to teach critical thinking and to teach children how to research effectively.

I've had students who believe no one has gone to the moon, they site 'evidence' of a waving flag (which was weighted) but are unaware of what would have to be faked to fake a moon landing.

Things like the TV signal from the moon was routed via Australia, you would have had to have a satellite orbiting so it was between the earth and the moon.

That satellite would have to take a TV feed from the earth without anyone detecting it and then route that signal back to the Earth.

And the signal being sent would presumably be from the US so it would need at least another satellite to receive the signal, route it to the 'false moon' satellite possibly by a string of satellites.

They interviewed 2,274 UK adults

And the report was by KCL for the BBC

That information alone would be enough to alert any serious conspiracy theorist

Right then 😆

I don't think that is what people say when they are saying the moon landings are a hoax 😂

Well said and thank you for your hard work even helping some of these morons who think it was a hoax or overreaction. Obviously these people were lucky enough to come through the worse time unscathed. Many others weren't so fortunate.

The woman I heard just now on the news talking about how she couldn't be with her dying Mother doesn't think it's a fucking hoax or that lockdowns, masks etc were an over-reaction.

Half of all people in the UK are of below average intelligence.

Remaining alive doesn’t mean you come out of anything unscathed. The toll lockdowns took on so many people especially vulnerable people was disproportionate and irreversible.

So about 500 adults then. Not 20 million.

Honestly I do roll my eyes when people get outraged by percentage stats before they read how few people actually take part in this research.

You could equally argue that everybody dies of cardiac arrest.

That's been around for ages. Poor woman. People are mad.

Also the “God aren’t people stupid how embarrassing, but not me I’m sooo clever” posts on this thread are beautifully ironic when you realise that actually only 500 or so people thought this in an online survey called “Conspiracy belief among the UK public and the role of alternative media” - any half wit can deduce that is not in fact 25% of the population.

In the survey 84% of respondents received the COVID vaccine and almost all 80% were glad they did. One of the ‘hoax’ questions was the belief that it was about population control (and given how much we know now about the lies and the propaganda to turn your neighbours in who can blame anyone for thinking it was handy).

Labelling people as crazy because they believe in conspiracy theories is part of the problem. It does nothing to address the issue.

And dismissing the research because - they did not ask me - just shows you do not understand research.

There has been growing research around conspiracy theories that is methodologically sound, and it all shows that a high proportion of the population believes in some conspiracy theory.

@LifeIsPainHighness
"Data were weighted to be representative of the UK by age, sex, region, and social grade."

Reliability
Validity
Extrapolation

I guess the average Professor has heard of these concepts.

But if you feel that they haven't, you are free to write new guidelines for construction of surveys.

A mix of different looking people still doesn’t translate into ‘25% of the population’ and the mix cannot be perfectly reflective of the population.

Even academics know that. No researcher thinks surveying a white middle aged many means all white middle aged men will think the same.

Like it or not - this is still just 500 people, and all this faux outraged is, is nothing else, amusing.