In the last century, running a dictatorshipA form of government in which one person possesses all the power without any limits. meant controlling everything. Dictators shut down newspapers and crushed their opponents by force.

Just one problem: secretly, the people loathed them. Eventually the pressure became too much and the people rose up.

But some dictators remained. They had to figure out how to avoid the same fate. So they adopted new techniques. Instead of crushing their people, they would keep them confused.

This is the argument of an influential book, Spin Dictators, by academics Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman.

So-called "spin dictators" keep dissidentA person who opposes official policy, especially that of an authoritarian state. newspapers in circulation, but limit their spread. They buy independent media outlets and turn them into propagandaInformation, which may be biased or misleading, used to promote a certain viewpoint. machines. They hire people to pretend to be their opponents, while actually controlling them.

The effect is to keep people constantly unsure whether or not anything is true. All information becomes suspect.

Now some think western politicians are copying from their playbook.

For example, spin dictators often use techniques from the world of entertainment. Their followers make merchandise and viral memes based on them, which helps control their image. Politicians like Donald TrumpAn American television personality who became US president from 2016 to 2020, and will become president again in January 2025. do the same thing.

Some fear these methods are undermining our own ability to discern what is and is not true. Social media is a big culprit, since it allows misinformation to spread quickly.

Research suggests that Americans who get most of their news from social media are generally more likely to have heard conspiracy theoriesTheories that explain world events by blaming shady groups of powerful people operating in secret. Some conspiracy theories have a basis in fact, but many more of them are completely invented. What is more, they often play on dangerous prejudices such as antisemitism. It's worth being especially cautious and critical when you come across accounts that ascribe enormous agency to small and secretive groups..¹

But others think we have got the wrong problem. Some experts think societies get more polarisedSeparated in their views by a great distance, as the North and South Poles are separated geographically. when people have more knowledge, not less.² They say there could be a virtue in a society that is not very sure what it knows and does not know.

Yes: The information age has given ambitious politicians tools of control that previous generations of dictators could only have dreamed of. This is making it harder and harder to verify anything.

No: Misinformation is out there, but people are also getting more digitally literateDigital literacy is the ability to find, critically evaluate and share news and information online. . We are simply in an adjustment phase before knowledge catches up with new technology.

Or... The problem is not that people are losing their grip on truth, but that society is coming to be made up of many competing truths. This means people cannot even agree on what they should disagree about.