(Washington) Princess Kate may have revealed that she has cancer, putting an end to weeks of rumors and speculation about her health, but on social networks, conspiracy theories continue to flow.
The Princess of Wales, 42, received messages of sympathy and well wishes from around the world after revealing on Friday that she was being treated for cancer.
The fiasco of the edited photo of Kate with her children after several months of absence from any public life as well as the culture of secrecy in the royal family have largely fueled these online speculations.
For experts, the proliferation of unfounded rumors illustrates a kind of information chaos, in the era of artificial intelligence and online disinformation, which alters the general public’s understanding of real events. Example: skull emojis on social media, suggesting that Kate was dead or in a coma.
Speculation took a more serious turn last week when British police were asked to investigate an attempt to access his confidential medical records.
“Kate was forced to make this statement,” writes author Helen Lewis in the American magazine The Atlantic. “The alternative, a firestorm of rumors and conspiracy theories, was worse.”
After the shocking revelation, the English tabloid Daily Mail, often criticized for its sensationalist front pages, this time attacked the rumor spreaders with the headline: “How do these vile trolls feel now? “.
“Cruel scammers”
But it was not the messages of remorse that followed on social networks. On the contrary, many on X and TikTok claimed that Kate’s video was a “deepfake”, that is to say a fake created by artificial intelligence.
Some went so far as to wonder why nothing was moving in the background, like a leaf or a blade of grass, to support their story. Others scrutinized his facial movements and speculated about the lack of a dimple.
“Sorry, House of Windsor, Kate Middleton and the mainstream media, I still don’t believe you,” read X. “Actually, I’m not sorry, you all read ‘The Child Who Cried Wolf’ ” No ? “.
Even his cancer did not escape attempts at misinformation, wrongly casting doubt on the fact that the disease was fatal and comparing chemotherapy to “poison.”
Several anti-vaccine Internet users jumped into the breach associating Kate’s diagnosis with “turbo cancer”, without proof, an urban legend linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
“There is no evidence supporting the ‘turbo cancer’ lie,” says Timothy Caulfield, a disinformation expert at the University of Alberta in Canada.
Conspiracy theorists are “cruel crooks who make fear and disinformation their business,” he adds.
“The seed of doubt”
Distrust of institutions and traditional media taints online conversations on various subjects, even the most important ones such as elections, climate or health, specialists observe.
“People don’t believe what they see and read,” Karen Douglas, professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, told AFP. “Once the seed of doubt has been sown and people lose confidence, conspiracy theories can gain momentum.”
Especially with a botched communications strategy by the palace, according to Karen Douglas. “Frankly, the palace could have hushed up this matter much earlier. »
For example, in a video showing Kate walking through a market with her husband William, heir to the throne, some made baseless claims that the princess had been replaced by a double.
“When it’s an institution as old and opaque as the royal family, public distrust creates an appetite for investigations,” says Dannagal Young of the University of Delaware.
And social media hashtags about Kate grew so much that people used them to promote other topics, like human rights abuses in India and the Middle East.