• relying on the authority of other organizations
• trust that governments of other countries know what they are doing
• the belief that ”you are not wrong if everyone else is equally wrong”
• overall fear and citizen expectation demanding action
• the belief that ”no politician has been jailed for too much precaution”
Sweden took a slightly different approach to handling the situation. As a consequence, it experi-
ences critique and pressure from outside. Such intolerance to alternative solutions is characteristic
to groupthink. The desire for cohesiveness is so strong, that despite having no vested interest,
other governments and organizations try to persuade Sweden government to change the policy.
The reason Sweden is immune to groupthink can be found in the structure of its Public Health
Agency. It is an independent organization protected from political interference. No government
minister oversees the agency, so it has the autonomy to make informed and balanced decisions
without being a subject to populist pressure. [26]
Specific claim
Social media platforms need to take a more aggressive stance on coronavirus misinformation.
Content moderation is necessary for civil discourse on the Internet. Without moderation any
medium that allows user contribution deteriorates into a ”troll feast”, attracting users who are
unable to contribute and only need to feed their ego by posting anything that spreads. A single
Internet troll may convert a constructive discussion into the inflammatory stream of emotional
responses. As a remedy there must exist clear rules to filter out irrelevant, harmful, or insulting
content.
There are decades of experience on how to moderate content in the online communities. Over
years social media platforms developed the rules and guidelines that worked reasonably well and
were tested in the field in many discussions including controversial topics.
There is no reason to believe that these rules are not adequate or applicable to one particular
topic.
Yet, in March 2020 social media platforms were obliged to expand content moderation rules to
include specific guidelines around coronavirus. They were aimed to reduce the information noise
and clear the Internet from ”crackpot” theories. The problem is that, along the way, the new
rules threw the baby out with the bathwater and eliminated the possibility to express doubt or
skepticism.
As an example Twitter broadened the definition of harm ”to address content that goes directly
against guidance from authoritative sources of global and local public health information” and
decided to remove the content that includes ”denial of global or local health authority recommen-
dations to decrease someone’s likelihood of exposure to COVID-19”.
Additionally Twitter introduced ”COVID19 verified accounts” endorsed by global public health
authorities. Content from verified accounts is prioritized over regular accounts for COVID-19
updates.
It means that a user who would like to discuss or question government policies is at the risk of
removal and the content representing the view that is not in line with authorities will be ”depri-
oritized”.
Other social media platforms were even more specific and announced that they do not accept
the content that downplays the severity of a global pandemic.
Simply put, the dogma has cemented and the guards of the dogma have been assigned. This is
the hallmark of the late stage of groupthink when the desire for cohesiveness is so irresistible that
censorship must be implemented.
The censorship is particularly dangerous here. Critical decisions have been made based on
the information about the 3.4% high mortality rate from global health authorities, which was so
19