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Accepted Paper:
Fighting conspiracy theories on a grassroots level: a case of a Facebook debunking group
Anastasiya Astapova
(University of Tartu)
Maili Pilt
(Institute of Cultural Research. University of Tartu)
This paper explores the Facebook group which targets disinformation and pseudoscience by trolling and reporting on conspiracy theories entrepreneurs and right-wing politicians. The research is based on online fieldwork as well as the interviews with the group's activists.
Paper long abstract:
This research focuses on combating conspiracy theories on a grassroots level, that is, in one of the Facebook debunking groups created by ordinary social media users. The online community under observation is the Estonian-language Facebook group "Victory of Light! Continuation" (Valguse võit! Järg), which emerged in the middle of the pandemic. This group exemplifies social media activism, bringing together people dedicated to fighting misinformation and conspiracy theories by reporting on and trolling those who spread these. This paper traces the development and strategies of the debunking group from its creation in 2021 to fight the Covid-related misinformation to 2022, when it mostly had to turn to debunk fake news about the Ukrainian war. We examine the motives and strategies for fighting conspiracy theories and false information based on online fieldwork and a face-to-face interview with the group’s founder. We also analyze how the group members identify themselves as an online community fighting together against misinformation and how they unwittingly create the folk archive of conspiracy theories.