Detecting Deception with the help of Formula One
Are Red Bull kids being bullied?
I’ve had some fun looking at rule breaking in sport on my YouTube channel. One of the stories I’ve looked at is the budget cap “scandal” in Formula 1. In doing some research on it this weekend, I spotted a glorious use of words from Red Bull team principal Christian Horner. The claim he made got social media busy.
There’s just one problem. Horner didn’t actually say that employees kids have been bullied because of rivals’ accusations of cheating. Here’s what he said.
We've been on trial because of public accusations since Singapore. And the rhetoric of cheats, the rhetoric of… that we've had this enormous benefit, that the numbers have been put out in the media that are miles out of reality, and the damage that does to the brand, to our partners, to our drivers, to our workforce, in an age where mental health is prevalent, we're seeing significant issues now, within our workforce. We’re getting kids that are being bullied in playgrounds that are employee’s children. That is not right, through fictitious allegations from other teams. And you cannot go around just making that kind of allegation without any fact, or substance. So, we absolutely are appalled at the behaviour of some of our competitors.
Look again at the section relating to bullying.
We’re getting kids that are being bullied in playgrounds that are employee’s children. That is not right, through fictitious allegations from other teams.
It’s indirect and passive. The general rule is, the more direct and straightforward something is, the more likely it is to be true. If he had said “Some of our employee’s children have been bullied at school because of these allegations from other teams” I’d have been more likely to buy that it had happened.
Instead, the line, “we’re getting kids that are being bullied in playgrounds that are employee’s children. That is not right, through fictitious allegations from other teams” is so distant and convoluted.
“We’re getting” is needless, “kids are being bullied” would be direct. Kids being bullied is shocking, kids you know being bullied hits even harder. If you really knew of kids of employees being bullied, you’d feel it hard, and you’d use direct language to talk about it.
Horner says “kids THAT are being bullied” which is far less personal than if he’d said “kids WHO are being bullied”. So much of his word choice for this anecdote is distant and impersonal. It all points to possible deception.
That kids are being bullied at school is a generic truth, it’s not deception to say that, so it can come out easily in words. The fact the bullied kids are employee’s children is added almost as an afterthought. If the children of employees were being bullied, you would be stating your relationship to these children as a priority.
It’s also worth nothing that Horner doesn’t say the children are employees of Red Bull. They are only the children of employees. He doesn’t specify which company they are employees of. Instead of assuming he meant Red Bull, we should ask why we kept it generic.
“That is not right” is a statement in the negative. Again, why has he not used stronger language for this, saying what it IS rather than what it IS NOT? Like “That is wrong” or “That is horrible”. And his use of “that is not right” rather than the more direct “this is not right” creates more distance.
Conclusion
This comment is a load of Bull. I’m sure he’s delighted that this has been picked up and made the headlines. I don’t believe it happened.