How a talk with his father pulled an Oregon man out of online conspiracy theories

Published February 7, 2023 By admin with Comments 1

David Morrill of Portland, Oregon, was involved in conspiracy theory communities online until a mental health crisis forced him to confront his beliefs. He talked with his father about how he found his way back to reality. Their conversation is part of our Student Reporting Labs series on misinformation, “Moments of Truth.”
Tonight, our Student Reporting Labs team brings us another edition of Moments of Truth, a series that delves into the spread of misinformation.

David Morrill of Portland, Oregon, was involved in online conspiracy theory communities, until a mental health crisis forced him to confront his beliefs. He talked with his father about how he found his way back to reality.

David Morrill, Portland, Oregon:

In the real world, I was falling behind. In this digital fantasy, I was unlocking the secrets of the universe.

Hello. I’m David Morrill. I’m a 30-year-old graduate student, and we’re here today to talk about how I slowly got drawn into conspiracy theories.

Scott Morrill, Father of David Morrill: I’m Scott Morrill. I’m David’s dad.

I don’t think, at first, I had any inkling that something was going on.

David Morrill:

It all started with something called the Cicada 3301. It’s this online puzzle.

It starts with basic problem solving. You would take, say, an anagram and arrange letters correctly to get a URL. I got involved more deeply in communities that were trying to crack this. I started going on Reddit specifically.

I realized I couldn’t. But there were other less well-known puzzles and challenges that people were directing my attention towards. I got it up in my head that there was some shadow group running everything. Maybe, if I solve these things, they’d let me in. I’d be a member. I never knew what the grand sacred truth was. I was just going through a hero’s journey of challenges and puzzles to try to get there maybe.

Scott Morrill:

Did you get more sort of desperate to crack the code, so to speak?

David Morrill:

Yes. Yes.

My relationship began failing darn near immediately after marriage, and my income was paltry, at best. I wasn’t sleeping. I was taking drugs. And I started getting really paranoid, as is a common side effect of marijuana. I started frantically reaching out and trying to express my concerns to y

Content retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-talk-with-his-father-pulled-an-oregon-man-out-of-online-conspiracy-theories.