It takes only a few seconds for someone to post something like “I heard eating this food cures the disease right away” in a group chat. But showing that the claim is false can take hours: finding papers, checking experts' explanations, and putting it all together in a readable way. Meanwhile, the original post has already spread to many other chats.
The rule of thumb that the effort needed to refute a false claim is far greater than the effort needed to produce it is called “Brandolini's Law.” It also goes by the somewhat cruder name “Bullshit Asymmetry Principle,” and put simply, it means “falsehoods are easy to make and hard to correct.”
In this article, we will look in turn at the background of Brandolini's Law, why rebuttals are especially hard, similar insights and cases that go back a long way, and how to handle information wisely amid this asymmetry.
Refuting Takes Ten Times the Effort: Brandolini's Law
How Brandolini's Law Came About
The law began with a single sentence that Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini posted on Twitter in January 2013. He wrote, “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” An order of magnitude bigger means a difference of roughly ten times.
Brandolini later explained what prompted the sentence. Right after reading Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow, he watched an Italian political talk show featuring former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and journalist Marco Travaglio. Having just read a book about how easily fast, intuitive thinking is fooled, he saw the exchanges in the debate all the more clearly.
Short and easy to relate to, the sentence spread quickly across the internet, and today it is often cited in science communication, journalism, and organizational research.
Why Rebuttals Are Especially Hard
Even on the same topic, the effort put in by those making a claim and those correcting it differs greatly.
(1) Claims that can be made without checking
A false claim can be made without looking for any evidence. A person refuting it, on the other hand, has to find sources, double-check them, and explain things so others can understand.
(2) Many claims pouring out at once
When a single short video mixes in several claims, each one must be checked separately. Jeff Yates, a disinformation reporter at Canada's Radio-Canada, said of his experience verifying a COVID-19 video, “It took him 15 minutes to make the video, and it took me three days to fact-check it.”
(3) First impressions that linger
People do not easily let go of the first story they hear. Even after hearing a correction, the false information they first heard often keeps influencing their thinking.
(4) The burden of standing up to one's community
If a false claim is widely believed in a group you belong to, refuting it demands not only time but also the courage to stand up to the people around you.
Insights and Cases from Long Ago
The name dates from 2013, but similar realizations existed long before.
- Jonathan Swift: In a 1710 essay he wrote, “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.”
- Frédéric Bastiat: In 1845 he pointed out that an opponent can state a half-truth in a few words, while showing that it is incomplete requires a long and tedious explanation.
A leading modern example is the misconception linking vaccines and autism. In 1998, Britain's Andrew Wakefield published a fraudulent paper claiming that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism. The paper was retracted, he lost his medical license, and countless later studies found no such link. Yet despite decades of research and education, the misconception has not completely disappeared, and it fed vaccine hesitancy that did great harm to public health.
How to Handle Information amid the Asymmetry
Just because refuting is hard does not mean we can give up. Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West, who have studied misinformation, summed up the attitude needed for effective correction as follows.
(1) Be correct
Include all the necessary information and double-check that the facts are right.
(2) Be charitable
Stay open to the possibility that you are the one who is mistaken, and do not label the other person as malicious or foolish.
(3) Be clear
State what you are claiming simply and consistently.
(4) Admit mistakes
If part of your explanation turns out to be wrong, correct it honestly.
What You Can Do in Everyday Life
Researchers say it helps to warn people about misinformation in advance, to repeat corrections rather than stopping at one, and to offer an alternative explanation of “what is actually true” in addition to “what was wrong.” For individuals, the easiest step is the habit of pausing to check the source before passing something along. Because making falsehoods is so easy, it is important to filter them once more at the point where they spread.
Brandolini's Law shows the unfair race between falsehood and truth. Yet that race slowly regains its balance through the effort of each person who takes the trouble to check the truth.
Doubting plausible claims once more, and speaking accurately and charitably when correcting them: that is the first step for truth to walk ahead of falsehood.
