Thread by @JanJekielek

Notable: Members of the UK's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour express regret about ‘unethical’ methods; Use of fear to control behaviour in #COVID19 crisis was ‘totalitarian’, they admit. 🧵[1/n]
archive.fo/7azQ8

"SPI-B [Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour] warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from #COVID19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”." [2/n]

"Gavin Morgan, a psychologist on the team, said: “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government. …all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people.”" [3/n]

"Mr Morgan spoke to author Laura Dodsworth [@BareReality], who has spent a year investigating the Government’s tactics for her book A State of Fear, published on Monday."

Subtitle 👉 How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic [4/n]
smile.amazon.com/State-Fear-gov…

"One SPI-B scientist told Ms Dodsworth: “In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance…" [5/n]

"…and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear. The way we have used fear is dystopian. “The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.” [6/n]

"Another SPI-B [Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour] member said: “You could call psychology ‘mind control’. That’s what we do… clearly we try and go about it in a positive way, but it has been used nefariously in the past.”" [7/n]

"One [UK Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour member] warned that “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise… We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in”." [8/n]

"Another member of SPI-B said they were "stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology" during the pandemic, and that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative. They have too much power and it intoxicates them”." [9/n]

"@SteveBakerHW, the deputy chairman of the #Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs, said: “If it is true that the state took the decision to terrify the public to get compliance with rules, that raises extremely serious questions about the type of society we want to become." [10/n]

.@SteveBakerHW: “If we’re being really honest, do I fear that [UK] Government policy today is playing into the roots of totalitarianism? Yes, of course it is.” [11/end]
archive.fo/7azQ8