The Cost of Lies: Why We Identify With Deadly Misinformation
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Killing People
In the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, I interviewed an NHS nurse who told me that "people are being taken into hospitals and murdered".
Those in her profession were running "death camps" that were "no different" to those of "the Third Reich", Kate Shemirani said. "When I liken this to Auschwitz and the cattle trucks, you tell me the difference? I am science-led and I am law-led… I call it genocide".
At the time, some criticised Byline TV for giving Shemirani 'a platform' for her conspiracy theories. When challenged on her outlandish claims, she called me a "special snowflake". Admittedly, I found it difficult to know how to deal with such an interaction as a journalist. One viewer commented that I looked almost "frozen" while listening to her impenetrable monologues. The interview stayed with me for days afterwards. It was disturbing.
Byline TV decided to speak to Shemirani because, at the height of a public health emergency, her fringe views - and others like them - were spreading on social media. In the uncertainty and upset of lockdowns and socially-distanced deaths, people were in search of stabilisers. And Shemirani was already enjoying a platform that she used to speak directly to those questioning the chaos.
Legitimising her claims was, clearly, not the aim, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. Without bringing such conspiracist mindsets into wider view, and attempting to counter them, often to no avail, it is difficult to identify and understand what exactly is being claimed in the crevices of conspiracist social media communities - and why people are drawn towards them in the first place.
Often, the stock response to conspiracy mindsets like Kate Shermirani's is 'ignore them and they'll go away'. But, if the past few years have taught us anything, these conspiracist social media communities have flourished regardless.
Having declared the pandemic to be a hoax and vaccines part of a plan to kill people, Shemirani was struck off as a nurse in 2021. Now branding herself as "the natural nurse", she sells membership to her alternative health business.
For a time, her social media accounts were suspended over the promotion of misinformation. When Elon Musk took over the then Twitter, she was reinstated on what became X, as well as on Facebook.
"I see her as a public health issue rather than a close family relative" is how her son Sebastian Shemirani described his estranged relationship with his mother a year later when I interviewed him for Byline TV.
Arguing with her, according to Sebastian, simply had the effect of confirming - in her mind - that she was 'right'. It was not only unhelpful to engage with her thinking, he said, but harmful: when presented with challenging facts, she would double-dow
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
Killing People
In the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, I interviewed an NHS nurse who told me that "people are being taken into hospitals and murdered".
Those in her profession were running "death camps" that were "no different" to those of "the Third Reich", Kate Shemirani said. "When I liken this to Auschwitz and the cattle trucks, you tell me the difference? I am science-led and I am law-led… I call it genocide".
At the time, some criticised Byline TV for giving Shemirani 'a platform' for her conspiracy theories. When challenged on her outlandish claims, she called me a "special snowflake". Admittedly, I found it difficult to know how to deal with such an interaction as a journalist. One viewer commented that I looked almost "frozen" while listening to her impenetrable monologues. The interview stayed with me for days afterwards. It was disturbing.
Byline TV decided to speak to Shemirani because, at the height of a public health emergency, her fringe views - and others like them - were spreading on social media. In the uncertainty and upset of lockdowns and socially-distanced deaths, people were in search of stabilisers. And Shemirani was already enjoying a platform that she used to speak directly to those questioning the chaos.
Legitimising her claims was, clearly, not the aim, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. Without bringing such conspiracist mindsets into wider view, and attempting to counter them, often to no avail, it is difficult to identify and understand what exactly is being claimed in the crevices of conspiracist social media communities - and why people are drawn towards them in the first place.
Often, the stock response to conspiracy mindsets like Kate Shermirani's is 'ignore them and they'll go away'. But, if the past few years have taught us anything, these conspiracist social media communities have flourished regardless.
Having declared the pandemic to be a hoax and vaccines part of a plan to kill people, Shemirani was struck off as a nurse in 2021. Now branding herself as "the natural nurse", she sells membership to her alternative health business.
For a time, her social media accounts were suspended over the promotion of misinformation. When Elon Musk took over the then Twitter, she was reinstated on what became X, as well as on Facebook.
"I see her as a public health issue rather than a close family relative" is how her son Sebastian Shemirani described his estranged relationship with his mother a year later when I interviewed him for Byline TV.
Arguing with her, according to Sebastian, simply had the effect of confirming - in her mind - that she was 'right'. It was not only unhelpful to engage with her thinking, he said, but harmful: when presented with challenging facts, she would double-dow
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