Networks where members are, for example, randomly exposed to a range of views are less likely to experience cascades of unchallenged belief. The disproportionate significance of the first responses to a claim can be addressed by an engineered attention to sources, authenticity and provenance; and the public introduction of accurate information can, if a trusted source is involved, dispel false consensus.
Perhaps most significantly, the way in which social information ripples through a network can be understood in terms of rational reactions to uncertainty, rather than irrational impulses addressable only by further irrationalism. And the more we understand the chain of events that led someone towards a particular perspective, the more we understand what it might mean to arrive at other views – or, equally importantly, to sow the seeds of sceptical engagement.