Viral: Words that Infect the Perception of Facts

The words that we use play an important role in how we construct our reality and interact with it.

Words and language do much more than merely name things; they dictate the way we relate to them. How we choose to talk about something, what words we use to communicate what an object or concept is, or how we describe an event implies a two-way street. Just as we define our reality through language, the way we use it for this purpose also determines how we perceive this reality.

This becomes evident when we see how we communicate and receive information during the present health crisis. It is indeed revealing that a single word, “viral,” presents both sides of the coin, both in naming this crisis and forging our reality around it.

The evolution of the words “virus,” “viral,” and “virality.”

The word virality or “viral phenomenon”, in its first meaning, comes from virus, the Latin word referring to a liquid venom. The etymology of the word also tells us about its semantics, the full spectrum of the concepts it intends to address. A poison flows, spreads quickly, its effect is aggressive and difficult to stop; in some cases, it is lethal.

These semantic properties made the word virus perfect for describing the pathologies that are replicated within the body and spread through it. From ancient times until now, the primary definition of a virus is the one that tells us about a pathological condition that is replicated inside a person’s body and could have the ability to jump to another and continue replicating.

Here, we are talking about the literal and solid meaning of the word, but the concept becomes intricate when the symbolic meaning enters, i.e., the allegory and political license. The term “virus” popped into the world of computing when Fred Cohen created software that replicated and extended itself through a system by adhering to programs within it as a way to attack the security systems of multi-user computers. That was the first instance of the word’s democratization when it ceased to be exclusive in the medical and scientific ethos and began to sneak into the language that we use every day.

The meaning that we now know is the product of appropriation by a semantics established in marketing and information management. Richard Dawkins, the renowned evolutionary biologist, refers to the memes (the first instances of viral content) as the equivalent of DNA. He speaks of its ability to replicate itself as a virus through the natural selection exercised by the meme that consumes the culture. This model of information dispersion is crucial to understand how we receive the data that forges our reality, especially in a health crisis. The information that describes our environment is not always the most truthful, precise, or specific; it is that which has survived the selection of content curation, algorithms, and replications through the audiences that share certain pieces of information.

Virus of misinformation

The posts, videos, publications, and viral content, and the reactions to them, whether supportive or outraged, have been part of our culture since long before the Internet existed. However, the language brought by the daily use of social networks has made us incorporate the word into our everyday vocabulary, describing the content that has the most impact, which we share the most, and forms a collective picture of the facts around us.

“We need to think differently about our information ecosystem. The metaphors that we use help shape what we think about our responsibility.”

The mechanisms that push information into our stories, networks, and mailboxes are no longer governed by popularity or truth but by algorithms and interest. These algorithms encourage content with which users have previously interacted. They do not provide different and new content, only the same that they have been consuming. This is potentially dangerous when the information being replicated attaches to real events, as it creates echo chambers and reinforces the confirmation bias of the users. In the end, no one is informed of what happens; we only receive content that confirms what we were already thinking previously.

This information, which can be skewed, incomplete, or false, is replicated within groups where the algorithm has already deciphered a pattern of content based on user consumption. This is how a virus of misinformation arises and spreads. Whitney Phillips, Assistant Professor of Communication and Rhetoric Studies at Syracuse University, has specialized in researching how information and extreme ideas are amplified to reach growing audiences through media coverage and the publishing of content in social media.

Phillips explains that one of the biggest dangers of the misinformation virus is the tendency that we have to think that we are not infected. However, every person who writes content based on biased information that has come only through algorithms or echo-chambers becomes a carrier of the virus and transmits it to another at the moment in which the received content replicates. These users may be asymptomatic in the sense that the content they share does not have a real consequence for them. Still, eventually, biased or false information will affect someone else.

Speaking of information about COVID-19, for example, it can happen that if a person shares on social media that family reunions do not pose any risk of contagion, a group of people who have received the information and have decided to have a family reunion may, indeed, suffer from an infection. Perhaps, one person can have an asymptomatic condition of COVID-19, and another can fall gravely ill from the virus.

“We need to think differently about our information ecosystem. The metaphors that we use help shape what we think about our responsibility.” Phillips hits the nail on the head about why the continuing use of terms like “viral” or “virality” when discussing information management presents a high risk for the mechanisms of misinformation we have today. A virus, as we mentioned at the beginning, is a pathology; by using the word, what we describe is a set of cells that replicate themselves, invading an organism without awareness or intent.

Sharing and managing information is not a pathology; it is a decision by those who produce the information and direct it to the echo chambers, as well as those who replicate it. The difference between cells and people is that we have awareness and a capacity for learning and critical thinking. The success of this “misinformation virus” lies in how much we seem to forget this.

Sofía García-Bullé

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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0