The theory plays into the bigger QAnon conspiracy theory, which baselessly claims that the world is controlled by a secret cabal of pedophiles that President Trump is actively fighting against.
Instagram Is Full of Conspiracy Theories and Extremism
As other social networks wage a very public war against misinformation, it’s thriving on Instagram.
The Women Making Conspiracy Theories Beautiful
How the domestic aesthetics of Instagram repackage QAnon for the masses
Why Trump Wants You to Think All Dissent Is a “Conspiracy”
What Pizzagate, election fraud lies, and Trump’s crackdown on antifa have in common.
How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Spread in My Colorado Hometown
During the pandemic, some of the people I grew up with in Parker, Colorado, got sucked into QAnon and the Q-adjacent "Save the Children" movement.
Who are the rightwing influencers filling Trump’s head with visions of antifa?
Meet the content creators whose videos from Portland and Chicago shape the president’s distorted view of reality
Conspiracy Theory GIF - Conspiracy Theory Explaining - Discover & Share GIFs
Click to view the GIF
The saga of 'Pizzagate': The fake story that shows how conspiracy theories spread
Thousands of people are spreading a false rumour about a Washington pizza restaurant and a child sex ring. But why?
Conspiracy Brokers: Understanding the Monetization of YouTube Conspiracy Theories
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3485447.3512142 WWW '22: Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2022, Virtual Event, Lyon, France, April 2022
The spreading of misinformation online
Significance The wide availability of user-provided content in online social media facilitates the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, and narratives. However, the World Wide Web is a fruitful environment for the massive diffusion of unverified rumors. In this work, using a massive quantitative analysis of Facebook, we show that information related to distinct narratives––conspiracy theories and scientific news––generates homogeneous and polarized communities (i.e., echo chambers) having similar information consumption patterns. Then, we derive a data-driven percolation model of rumor spreading that demonstrates that homogeneity and polarization are the main determinants for predicting cascades’ size. , The wide availability of user-provided content in online social media facilitates the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, and narratives. However, the World Wide Web (WWW) also allows for the rapid dissemination of unsubstantiated rumors and conspiracy theories that often elicit rapid, large, but naive social responses such as the recent case of Jade Helm 15––where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as the beginning of a new civil war in the United States. In this work, we address the determinants governing misinformation spreading through a thorough quantitative analysis. In particular, we focus on how Facebook users consume information related to two distinct narratives: scientific and conspiracy news. We find that, although consumers of scientific and conspiracy stories present similar consumption patterns with respect to content, cascade dynamics differ. Selective exposure to content is the primary driver of content diffusion and generates the formation of homogeneous clusters, i.e., “echo chambers.” Indeed, homogeneity appears to be the primary driver for the diffusion of contents and each echo chamber has its own cascade dynamics. Finally, we introduce a data-driven percolation model mimicking rumor spreading and we show that homogeneity and polarization are the main determinants for predicting cascades’ size.
Fauci’s COVID-origins hearing shows how conspiracy theories became political weapons
Conspiracy theories don’t just explain events – they identify villains, and Fauci is among the most popular.
Does Developing a Belief in One Conspiracy Theory Lead a Person to be More Likely to Believe in Others?
ABSTRACT The monological belief system model suggests that—for at least a subset of people—developing a belief in one conspiracy theory will cause them to be more likely to believe in others. This model has been influential in the literature, but its core causal hypothesis has never been credibly tested. We therefore tested it in two longitudinal studies. Study 1 used a sample from New Zealand and Australia ( N = 498), with 7 monthly waves. Study 2 (preregistered) used a sample from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom ( N = 978), with 13 monthly waves. We applied random intercept cross‐lagged panel models, permitting a credible causal identification strategy, albeit we cannot rule out time‐varying confounds. We find that increased belief in a conspiracy theory at one wave did (on average) predict increased belief in other conspiracies at the next wave, although the estimated coefficients were small.
Does Developing a Belief in One Conspiracy Theory Lead a Person to be More Likely to Believe in Others?
ABSTRACT The monological belief system model suggests that—for at least a subset of people—developing a belief in one conspiracy theory will cause them to be more likely to believe in others. This model has been influential in the literature, but its core causal hypothesis has never been credibly tested. We therefore tested it in two longitudinal studies. Study 1 used a sample from New Zealand and Australia ( N = 498), with 7 monthly waves. Study 2 (preregistered) used a sample from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom ( N = 978), with 13 monthly waves. We applied random intercept cross‐lagged panel models, permitting a credible causal identification strategy, albeit we cannot rule out time‐varying confounds. We find that increased belief in a conspiracy theory at one wave did (on average) predict increased belief in other conspiracies at the next wave, although the estimated coefficients were small.
Trust — Utopian conspiracy
A network of utopian conspirators, a sandbox for their creative, technical and critical projects, and a site of experimentation for new ways of learning together.
Leveraging Motivations to Curb Misinformation: Self-Affirmation Reduces the Appeal of Political Conspiracy Theories
Abstract: In an era where digital misinformation poses significant challenges to societal well-being, this study explores a novel approach to preserving information integrity by addressing the motivational underpinnings of conspiracy theory engagement. As conspiracy theories proliferate online, traditional fact-checking and debunking strategies often prove ineffective due to the self-reinforcing nature of conspiracy theories. This research investigates whether a priori self-affirmation interventions can reduce individuals’ propensity to engage with conspiracy theories by preemptively fulfilling the ego-protective function these theories often serve. Using a randomized experiment ( N = 451), this study finds that participants who completed a self-affirmation task were less likely to read politicized conspiracy theories, and those who chose to read a conspiracy theory reported greater feelings of affirmation than those who did not. Thus, bolstering individuals’ self-integrity may offer an opportunity to mitigate the appeal of politicized conspiracy theories.
The Plot to Subvert an Election: Unraveling the Russia Story So Far (Published 2018)
For two years, Americans have tried to absorb the details of the 2016 attack: spies, leaked emails, social media fraud — and President Trump’s claims that it’s all a hoax. The Times explores what we know and what it means.
Just Asking Questions: Doing Our Own Research on Conspiratorial Ideation by Generative AI Chatbots
Interactive chat systems that build on artificial intelligence frameworks are increasingly ubiquitous and embedded into search engines, Web browsers, and operating systems, or are available on websites and apps. Researcher efforts have sought to understand the limitations and potential for harm of generative AI, which we contribute to here. Conducting a systematic review of six AI-powered chat systems (ChatGPT 3.5; ChatGPT 4 Mini; Microsoft Copilot in Bing; Google Search AI; Perplexity; and Grok in Twitter/X), this study examines how these leading products respond to questions related to conspiracy theories. This follows the platform policy implementation audit approach established by Glazunova et al. (2023). We select five well-known and comprehensively debunked conspiracy theories and four emerging conspiracy theories that relate to breaking news events at the time of data collection. Our findings demonstrate that the extent of safety guardrails against conspiratorial ideation in generative AI chatbots differs markedly, depending on chatbot model and conspiracy theory. Our observations indicate that safety guardrails in AI chatbots are often very selectively designed: generative AI companies appear to focus especially on ensuring that their products are not seen to be racist; they also appear to pay particular attention to conspiracy theories that address topics of substantial national trauma such as 9/11 or relate to well-established political issues. Future work should include an ongoing effort extended to further platforms, multiple languages, and a range of conspiracy theories extending well beyond the United States.
