Techniques · Digital-era

Firehose of falsehood

Broadcasting a high volume of messages across many channels, rapidly, repetitively, and without regard for consistency or truth, so that the audience is overwhelmed rather than persuaded.

Family Digital-era First documented 2016 Exploits Illusory truth effect, Anchoring Related fallacy Argument by repetition
How it works

Classical propaganda tried to be believed; the firehose tries to be everywhere. Its four features, as the RAND analysts Paul and Matthews described them from Russian practice, are high volume across many channels, rapid and continuous repetition, no commitment to objective reality, and no commitment to consistency. Contradictory accounts of the same event are released together and none is withdrawn. The aim is not that any one story be accepted but that the audience give up on distinguishing, conclude that nothing can be known, and disengage.

The device combines repetition, the big lie, and censorship by noise at industrial scale. It works because familiarity breeds belief, because a first impression is hard to dislodge, and because fact-checking one story at a time cannot keep pace with a firehose. Exploits Illusory Truth Effect and Anchoring.

Historical examples

2014 · Malaysia Airlines flight 17

After MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine in July 2014, Russian state media and officials advanced a series of incompatible accounts: a Ukrainian fighter jet, a Ukrainian missile aimed at another aircraft, a CIA plot, a plane pre-loaded with corpses. None was withdrawn as the others appeared. The Dutch-led investigation's finding that a Russian-supplied Buk missile was responsible met the same treatment.

Paul, Christopher, and Miriam Matthews. The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2016; Dutch Safety Board. Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The Hague, October 2015. Source

2016 · RAND analysis

Paul and Matthews's paper named the model and set out why it works against the standard counter-measures: rebuttal is slower than production, a first false impression persists after correction, and the audience's exhaustion is itself the goal. Their recommendation was to "forewarn" audiences and to attack the firehose's credibility rather than its individual claims.

Paul, Christopher, and Miriam Matthews. The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model: Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2016.

In advertising and commerce

2010s–present · content farms

Commercial content farms apply the model to traffic: hundreds of articles a day across dozens of sites on the same topic, each optimized for search and none checked, so that a reader looking for one fact meets a wall of contradictory pages. The revenue is in the volume, and the epistemic effect on the reader is the same as the political version's.

Marwick, Alice, and Rebecca Lewis. Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. New York: Data & Society Research Institute, 2017.

Classroom prompt

Find an event about which one source has offered several different explanations. List them. Were any withdrawn? What is the effect of holding all of them at once?

In the wild

Short examples of the technique at work, each with what to notice. The same examples are questions in the quiz, where the answer is not given away.

1
Within a day of the explosion, the ministry's outlets said it was an accident, a foreign attack, a rival faction, and a fabrication. All four stories are still up.

What to notice. Volume, speed, and contradiction from one source, with no version withdrawn; the aim is exhaustion, not belief.

2
"Honestly, with all the different stories out there, who can say what happened?" The event is documented in a public inquiry.

What to notice. The firehose has succeeded: the audience has given up distinguishing.

3
Forty websites published near-identical articles on the study within hours, each with a different, incompatible headline.

What to notice. Many channels, high volume, no consistency; the multichannel spread is the signature.

Sources

  1. Paul, Christopher, and Miriam Matthews. The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2016. doi:10.7249/PE198
  2. Pomerantsev, Peter. This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. London: Faber & Faber, 2019. ISBN 978-0571338634
  3. Dutch Safety Board. Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. The Hague, 2015.