The United Kingdom and other governments around the world used covert psychological methods during the COVID-19 pandemic to manipulate and control the public, says filmmaker and author Laura Dodsworth.
In the course of the investigation for her book, “A State of Fear: How the UK Government Weaponized Fear During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Dodsworth said she found that the UK government’s “nudge” unit purposefully deployed fear to make the public comply with things such as extended lockdowns and vaccinations.
“Fear of an infection in a pandemic is natural. ... But it was put on steroids by the government’s handling of it,” she said.
After researching the virus and understanding the various risk levels based on age and comorbidities, Dodsworth said what frightened her more than contracting COVID-19 was the response by the government.
“Right from the beginning, it struck me as completely immoral to say to people who are healthy—and no reason to be thought infectious—that they can’t leave the house to work, to earn a living, to provide for their family, let alone to do all the other normal things that we consider to be basic human rights, like have relationships, go to a place of education, a place of worship,” she said. “The lockdown was such a tough and authoritarian measure, and so unprecedented.”
After Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s public address in May 2020, in which he mandated that people must remain in their homes with limited ability to leave—even for light outdoor exercise—Dodsworth said she was terrified by the government’s authoritarianism.
“The fear around me, you could kind of smell it in the air, and that made me frightened of authoritarianism,” Dodsworth said.
What really prompted Dodsworth to investigate the government’s handling of the pandemic was her reading of the minutes from a meeting of the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE), which helped to craft COVID-19 policies.
In May 2020, SAGE began releasing meeting minutes and research papers used in its COVID-19 policy decision making, and Dodsworth began reading them.
In a March 2020 research paper prepared for SAGE by the Independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behavior (SPI-B)—the UK government’s behavioral science consulting group—SPI-B advised that members of the public were not following COVID-19 protocols because they weren’t concerned enough about the virus.
“Essentially, these psychologists and behavioral scientists suggested that people would need to be frightened to follow the lockdown rules, and that really sent me off on a journey to understand how fear was weaponized, even if it was in our best interests,” Dodsworth said.
The SPI-B group was employed by the UK government, she said, but many governments have these types of organizations that use a technique called the “nudge,” which works on a subliminal level by using persuasion, shaming, coercion, collective thinking, and social norms.
“It’s about understanding how human beings behave and exploiting those mechanisms to encourage people to make the ‘right’ decisions, and this is where I think it’s tricky, that policymakers and the behavioral scientists advising them decide what being a model citizen is—they decide what being ‘good’ is, and they ‘nudge’ you,” Dodsworth said.
“Don’t Kill Granny” is one example of strong emotional messaging that SPI-B recommended the government use to get people to comply with the rules.
Dodsworth said “Don’t Kill Granny” was never explicitly used in advertisements, but the phrase was pushed by media and government officials.
“Our health secretary, Matt Hancock, actually used the term ‘Don’t Kill Granny.’ So, imagine that pressure, that burden that’s put onto young people.”
She said this type of messaging inundates people 24/7—being seen everywhere, including on billboards, magazines, and social media platforms—to ultimately influence our thinking and behavior. Dodsworth gave an example of how a teacher at her child’s school was affected by this type of messaging.
“One of my children said that a teacher shouted in the corridor to a student who wasn’t masked, ‘You’re killing people,’” she said.
Dodsworth said she believes that governments breach ethical codes when they use coercive nudge techniques without the public’s consent because they are public servants and should answer to the people. She believes there should be public inquiries into the government’s nudge strategy.
“It’s the politicians’ job to put forward good ideas, and then you vote for them, and then they enact them,“ she said. ”It is not their job to get voted in, have good ideas in a room with closed doors, and then work out sneaky ways to make you go along with it.”
Dodsworth said that if the psychologists behind the UK’s nudge campaign were testing their techniques in a laboratory experiment, the people being influenced by the techniques would have to sign consent forms.
“Most of the public does not understand the behavioral psychology techniques that are used on them, and they don’t know it’s happening and how much of their taxpayer’s money is spent on it,” she said.
The UK government has been using the same language and psychological manipulations to get people to take the COVID-19 vaccines, Dodsworth said, adding that officials and media began to dehumanize those who were not vaccinated by referring to them as “epidemiological time bombs,” “weapons,” and “bioterrorists,” and labeling them as vectors of disease.
Pandemic Propaganda and Beyond
Dodsworth said these coercive nudge techniques have eroded the public’s trust in the government and health officials, and that there is prevailing evidence to suggest that governments and media entities have been using these methods against the public long before the pandemic.Those measures would include having government agents infiltrate online chat rooms and message boards to “dispel” conspiracy theories, she said.
Dodsworth said she deliberately reads materials from a broad swath of media and makes up her own mind and recommends that practice to others, describing the landscape as an “information battlefield.”
“Every time you engage with the media and social media, you need to be aware that someone is trying to persuade you of something,“ she said. ”Sure, go and get the information you want, get the entertainment you want, but try to use everything consciously. Try to be sure what you want to use it for.”
Dodsworth said some people are now very aware of the propaganda and behavioral science techniques, and that they don’t know who to trust for information anymore, but she said it’s important to have balance and be measured about media choices.
She believes pushing back on governments is required. “I think every citizen has power; we have to remember that we invest governments with authority,” she said.
There likely won’t be any serious calls for inquiry into the government’s use of behavioral science techniques unless the public clamors for it and puts pressure on the government, Dodsworth said.
“The thing is that behavioral science is incredibly useful to governments. It avoids the awkward debate, the persuasion that’s needed. It avoids enacting legislation. You just nudge people subtly into doing what you want,” she said. “I think it’s a very cheap and reasonably effective and quite sneaky way to get people to do what they want.”
Dodsworth said the pandemic will have lasting mental health effects, so tolerance and empathy are needed.
“A psychologist coined a term called COVID anxiety syndrome and has identified that 20 percent of people are hanging on to obsessive hygiene measures and watching the news and are not ready to live a normal life again,” she said.
That fear, Dodsworth said, will be the enduring story of the pandemic.
“COVID will become an endemic disease, but we can always be frightened,“ she said. ”And that can always be leveraged against us.”
