The subject of conspiracy theories and why some people believe them has become increasingly popular over the last few years. However, less attention has been paid to the reasons why people will share them with others. In a new study,…[Continue Reading...]
Earth's greatest minds have known our world is round since at least as far back as the day Pythagoras made his calculations in ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago. But as you might have guessed from fighting with relatives and…[Continue Reading...]
This “Simpsons” prediction was no laughing matter. Conspiracy theorists have been torched online after crediting the seemingly clairvoyant cartoon with foretelling a wild and unfounded theory concerning the Hawaii wildfires. Tinfoil-hatted social media denizens detailed this outlandish allegation of life…[Continue Reading...]
There are fears that misinformation is gaining "enough traction to be dangerous" amid a report that someone was assaulted for promoting the policy. Politicians in Scotland's capital are worried about "wild conspiracy theories" which have been spread about the concept…[Continue Reading...]
For Sander van der Linden, misinformation is personal. As a child in the Netherlands, the University of Cambridge social psychologist discovered that almost all of his mother’s family had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War. He…[Continue Reading...]
In my most recent nonfiction book, "Operation Mindf**k: QAnon & the Cult of Donald Trump," I focused extensively on a "QTuber" named Rick Rene, because I viewed him then and now as the perfectly imperfect microcosm of the entire messed-up…[Continue Reading...]
Conspiracy theory beliefs and (more generally) misinformation may be groundless, but they can have a range of harmful real-world consequences, including spreading lies, undermining trust in media and government institutions and inciting violent or even extremist behaviors. For example, some…[Continue Reading...]
US congressional hearings can be dry affairs but not of late. First there was Robert Kennedy Jr, purveyor of disinformation about vaccines and much else, testifying about big tech censorship. Then David Grusch, a former intelligence officer, claiming that the…[Continue Reading...]
For a long time, people have been asking whether certain demographic traits are associated with higher risks of believing in conspiracy theories. For example, there is plenty of literature trying to suss out whether males or females, older or younger…[Continue Reading...]
Joseph Hone, author of The Paper Chase: The Printer, the Spymaster, and the Hunt for the Rebel Pamphleteers (Chatto & Windus, 2020) The 17th century was an age of conspiracies. It was also an era in which discerning real conspiracies…[Continue Reading...]
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