Rumors spread like viruses. The French Revolution proved it.
It is difficult to contain disinformation once enough people believe it. A conspiracy theory is propagated exponentially, whatever its precision, which makes it much more likely to result in real violence. According to a study published on August 27 in the journal NatureThese situations can (and should) be mapped geographically with the same models as epidemiologists use to follow diseases. And as an example, researchers turned to one of the most famous moments of disinformation in history.
What was the great fear of 1789?
The great fear of 1789 was a major chapter of the French Revolution and a decisive moment in modern history. Between July 20 and August 6, the peasants of France mobilized at an astonishing speed following false rumors of an aristocratic plot to intentionally starve a large part of the population.
The first reports said that armed militias have burned hundreds of rich landowners and manors. However, subsequent evidence shows that in most cases, rioters simply left letters declaring the dissolution of feudal privileges. Violence has never been blind and less than 20 people would have died during the uprisings. On August 4, the situation led when the National Assembly officially withdrew feudal rights. This bold action helped boost the broader French revolution and lay the foundations for the expansion of democratic governance.
A mountain of primary sources
But how did the conspiracy theory be distributed through a nation roughly the size of Texas in a few days, long before telegraphs? According to the statistical modeler Stefano Zapperi, it is necessary to consider the great fear as a situation of public health. He first recounts the learning of the idea of using public health measures to map historical events after having met the pathologist Caterina La Porta.
“Caterina, given her scientific experience, immediately realized that the problem could be addressed using epidemiological tools,” explains Zappemi Popular science. “We then created an interdisciplinary collaboration involving economy, history, medicine and physics to solve the problem.”
It may seem difficult, if not impossible, to study the centuries of infectious propagation of a viral idea afterwards. However, Zapperi and his colleagues had a major advantage: mountains of primary sources.
“Almost 100 years ago, the historian George Lefebvre collected all the existing evidence of the great fear, carefully summarizing all archive files with dates and specific places for each event, recorded in letters and accounts written at the time of events,” explains Zapper.
After geographically drawing these accounts, the team traced the rumor spreading through France. The information was so detailed that the researchers managed to estimate that the great fear spread at around 28 miles every 24 hours along the country’s road networks. About 40% of these locations were also close to a postal station, further stressing the importance of communications written at the time.
They then combined this information with demographic and economic data such as literacy rates, wheat prices and land ownership. They found that the locations most likely to accommodate large fear of fear were densely populated, more literate cities which included average income levels but higher wheat prices. The villages where land ownership obliged a lord to have legal documents denoting his complaint also increased the possibility of an uprising.
Echos of the past heard today
With these combined data, Zapperi’s team says that the spread of the great fear followed the trajectory of an infectious disease – quickly and culminating on July 30 before dissipating quickly.
But while the underlying “fear” of the great fear was completely unfounded, the conditions that fomented it were very real. The aristocrats may never plan to shoot the population by holding the resources, but it was the peasants who really lasted with untenable conditions.
“Our work has shown that the great fear was not an irrational event motivated by emotions, but rather the result of a rational response to the socio-economic conditions present at the time,” explains Zapperi. “The main thing is that the extreme levels of inequality and injustice known in the 18th century France sparked large -scale movements leading to a fairer society.”
Compared to 236 years ago, today’s disinformation landscape is almost unrecognizable. The digital age is simultaneously more interconnected and chaotic than any other moment in human history. But to zap, it makes both the great fear and the epidemiological approach of his team all the more protruding.
“The great fear provides a living example of the role that the spread of rumors has to motivate the political changes that could be relevant today,” he said. “Today, information and disinformation can spread much faster than in the past. But today, the transmission model is often based on face -to -face exchanges, especially when rumors give birth to a physical riot. ”
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