Conspiracy theories abounded online after a major IT outage on Friday, from fear-mongering about an imminent “World War III” to false stories linking a cabal of the global elite to a cyberattack.
The crash left airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions in turmoil. It was one of the biggest crashes in recent years, the result of a faulty software update of an antivirus program running on Microsoft Windows.
The proliferation of conspiracy theories that broke the internet on social media platforms — many of which have removed the security-related restrictions that once prevented the spread of misinformation — reflects the new normal of information chaos after a major world event.
The disruption was followed by a number of posts, without evidence, on Elon Musk-owned Site X (formerly known as Twitter) that told a frightening story: the world was under attack by a nefarious force.
“I read somewhere that World War 3 will be primarily a cyber war,” one user wrote on X.
The IT mishap also gave rise to a baseless theory that the World Economic Forum – a long-standing bastion of falsehood – had plotted a global cyberattack.
To lend credence to this theory, several posts linked to an old video from the WEF that warned about the possibility of a “cyberattack with COVID-like characteristics.”
The video, available on the WEF website, cautioned that the only way to stop the rapid spread of the cyber threat would be to isolate millions of unprotected devices from each other and from the internet.
– ‘Sad Testament’ –
The WEF has long been a target of conspiracy theorists, who push the idea of a shadowy cabal of elites working for private gain under the guise of solving global issues.
In addition, conspiratorial posts using the hashtag “Cyber Polygon” were also becoming increasingly popular online, a reference to a global training event aimed at preparing for potential future attacks.
“The proliferation of conspiracy theories in the wake of such major global events is a sad testament to the volatile nature of the information ecosystem,” Rafi Mendelsohn, vice president at disinformation protection company Cybra, told AFP.
“What is unique about events like these is how social media platforms, forums and messaging apps facilitate the rapid dissemination of content, allowing theories to quickly gain popularity and reach a global audience.”
This trend reflects the ability of falsehoods to turn into viral narratives on tech platforms, which have reduced content moderation and restored accounts that are known promoters of misinformation.
During rapidly evolving news events, confusion often reigns on major tech platforms, with users sifting through a sea of false or misleading posts to find accurate information that quickly becomes popular.
– ‘Maleful intentions’ –
“This raises a bigger question about how to combat mis- and disinformation,” Michael W. Moser, executive director of the Global Disinformation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, told AFP.
“The level of trust required to accept information from reputable sources has fallen to such an extent that people are more willing to believe unfounded conspiracies than factual information they are given that ‘must be true’.”
The global outage, which paralyzed myriad aspects of daily life and sent US stocks tumbling, was linked to a bug in an update to US cybersecurity group CrowdStrike’s antivirus program for Windows systems.
George Kurtz, the Austin-based company’s chief executive, assured that CrowdStrike had figured out the problem and was “actively working” to resolve the crisis, but that did little to stop the spread of online conspiracies.
“It’s hard to counter this misinformation with factual rebuttals because the issue is so technical,” Moser said.
“Explaining that the error was in an improperly configured system file and that a fix is underway may be correct, but it will not be believed by those who see nefarious intent behind the failures.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
