It's Obvious

Online debates about the various accusations of corruption directed at both President Trump and former Vice-President Biden are, to be honest, not all that enlightening. They quickly tend to degenerate into naked partisanship, with people offering or debunking "evidence" based on which side they're on, rather than the content and quality of the material. Here's a snippet from one such conversation.

I'm sorry but if you're still ignoring Joe Biden's political corruption after the revelations, including recordings, in this interview with Tony Bobulinski tonight, I don't know what to tell you. Tucker Carlson is looking right in the camera and making devastating accusations, without any hedging. If these things aren't true, Joe Biden would own Fox News. Knowing Fox legal had to sign off on this, you have to accept that it's at LEAST credible enough for the other networks to investigate.

So here's the interesting thing. The fundamental premise, which is that some vetting of the accusations was required prior to their being aired, is false. The legal department of Fox News didn't have to sign off on anything. Tucker Carlson can make any number of "devastating accusations," that later turn out to be false or unsubstantiated. There would only be a problem legally if it could be proven that Mr. Carlson knew that he was making false statements when he made them. That is to say, Mr. Carlson would have to have been knowingly lying, which is not something that any corporate legal department would be able to determine (unless they also knew that 1. the accusations were false and 2. the on-air host had been informed of that). Given this, former Vice-President Biden wouldn't at all "own" Fox News if it were later revealed that the accusations were false, or even fabricated (unless it turned out that Mr. Carlson himself was in on the fabrication).

One of the drivers of a conspiratorial mindset, at least in my experience, is not understanding how something works, and then substituting a flawed belief. In this case, it's a variant on "they can't say it on television if it isn't true." And this may point to why conspiracy theories can be so difficult to combat. For many people they fall into the realm of things that they don't know that they don't know. Combine that with a dash of motivated reasoning, and that's pretty much all you need. And the modern world is remarkably complex. The intricacies of libel law may as well be Greek to most people, since it rarely comes up in day-to-day life. And this void leaves plenty of room for seemingly sensible inaccuracies to seep in, and then become a sort of "proof" that nefariousness is afoot.