Brandolini's law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet
adage coined in 2013 that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states the following:
Origins
The adage was publicly formulated the first time in January 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer. Brandolini stated that he was inspired by reading
Daniel Kahneman's ''
Thinking, Fast and Slow
''Thinking, Fast and Slow'' is a 2011 book by psychologist Daniel Kahneman.
The book's main thesis is a differentiation between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and mo ...
'' right before watching an Italian political talk show with former Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies f ...
and journalist
Marco Travaglio.
Examples
The persistent claim that
vaccines cause autism is a prime example of Brandolini's law. The false claims, despite extensive investigation showing no relationship, have had a disastrous effect on public health. Decades of research and attempts to educate the public have failed to eradicate the misinformation.
In another example, shortly after the
Boston Marathon bombing
The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...
, the claim that a student who had survived the
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, United States, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people. Twenty of the victims were children between six and seven years old, and t ...
had been killed by the bombing began to spread across social media. Despite many attempts to debunk the rumor, including an investigation by
Snopes
''Snopes'' , formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source f ...
, the false story was shared by more than 92,000 people and was covered by major news agencies.
In an example of Brandolini's law during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, a journalist at
Radio-Canada
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...
said, "It took this guy 15 minutes to make his video and it took me three days to fact-check."
The yoga
scholar-practitioners Mark Singleton and Borayin Larios write that several of their colleagues have "privately" expressed their "aversion to public debate" with non-scholars because of Brandolini's law.
Environmental researcher Dr. Phil Williamson of
University of East Anglia
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...
implored other scientists in 2016 to get online and refute falsehoods to their work whenever possible, despite the difficulty per Brandolini's law. He wrote, "the scientific process doesn't stop when results are published in a peer-reviewed journal. Wider communication is also involved, and that includes ensuring not only that information (including uncertainties) is understood, but also that misinformation and errors are corrected where necessary."
Similar concepts
In 1845,
Frédéric Bastiat expressed an early notion of this law:
See also
*
Burden of proof
*
False balance
False balance, also bothsidesism, is a media bias in which journalists present an issue as being more balanced between opposing viewpoints than the evidence supports. Journalists may present evidence and arguments out of proportion to the act ...
*
Gish gallop
The Gish gallop is a rhetorical technique in which a person in a debate attempts to overwhelm their opponent by providing an excessive number of arguments with no regard for the accuracy or strength of those arguments. In essence, it is prioriti ...
*
Hitchens's razor
*
List of eponymous laws
This list of eponymous laws provides links to articles on laws, principles, adages, and other succinct observations or predictions named after a person. In some cases the person named has coined the law – such as Parkinson's law. In other ...
*
Poe's law
References
{{reflist
Adages
Internet terminology
Asymmetry
Eponyms
2013 neologisms