Schrödinger’s Cat

I find judging whether information is true or false increasingly complicated. I probably start with fairly ordinary questions: Where did it come from? Who is saying it? Can I find the original source? Is somebody else independently reporting the same thing? However, I also think I have to question myself. If a story confirms something I already believe, or everybody around me suddenly seems to be repeating it, that may actually be the moment when I need to check it most carefully.

Something that happened to me recently illustrates this. During the 2026 World Cup, I was told by word of mouth that the enormous amount of negativity towards Argentina had deliberately been created as an experiment to see whether people could be persuaded to turn against them. It sounded completely plausible. When I actually tried to verify it, however, the story became much less clear.

There certainly was an extraordinary amount of hostile and conspiratorial content surrounding Argentina during the tournament, including claims that FIFA and referees were favouring the team, alongside manipulated and AI-generated material circulating on social media (Zidan, 2026). After the tournament, claims also emerged that there had been an organised “anti-Argentina campaign”. Researchers examining the online conversation identified some unusual patterns, although they also stated that there was no public evidence demonstrating a large-scale coordinated operation (Iglesia & Rogero, 2026). (The Guardian)

Therefore, I cannot substantiate the version I originally heard, particularly the claim that it had been deliberately conducted as an experiment. I find that fascinating because my attempt to investigate a story about misinformation became a small lesson in misinformation itself.

It also makes me think about lobbying, PR and marketing. Influence does not necessarily depend upon fabricating an entire story. People can influence perception through the information they select, the language they use, what they repeatedly amplify and what they leave out. Berthon et al. (2018) describe brands as perceptual processes and demonstrate how fake news can affect them both directly and indirectly. A false or distorted narrative can therefore acquire commercial consequences even when the organisation itself had nothing to do with creating it. (IDEAS/RePEc)

I had also heard on a podcast that Elon Musk sometimes posts things simply to “test the waters” and see how people respond. I could not verify the stronger version I remembered, that he deliberately posts something he knows to be false to see whether people will believe it. What I could verify is that Musk has openly used polls on X to gauge public reaction. For example, when polling users about whether Tesla should invest $5 billion in xAI, he described the poll as a way to “test the waters” (Jin & Tanna, 2024). (Reuters) Again, the distinction matters. Something I remember hearing is evidence that I heard it; it is not evidence that the claim itself is true.

There is also something very human going on here. Vosoughi et al. (2018) analysed the diffusion of verified true and false stories on Twitter and found that false information travelled farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than truthful information. They also found that human behaviour played a greater role in this difference than automated bots. (Science) In other words, technology gives misinformation extraordinary reach, but we humans are quite capable of supplying the legs.

I also think there is a difficult grey area between falsehood and perspective. Put ten people in a room and have them witness the same event and I suspect we could receive ten different accounts of it. They may all have genuinely experienced the situation differently because they noticed different things and interpreted them through different experiences, interests and biases. Facts still matter. If somebody is alive and a story says that person has died, one of those things is factually wrong. But in the meanwhile it’s Schrodinger‘s cat.