On Saturday, The New York Times profiled an Arizona campaign event headed by Donald Trump, Jr. — and noted the omnipresent conspiracy theories and paranoid falsehoods being spread at the event. “Inside, around 500 chairs were lined up as...
Related topics: Donald Trump
Conspiracy theories connected to QAnon are spreading on social media. Don't be fooled.
Related topics: Social Media
FRIDAY, Sept. 25, 2020 -- People who buy into conspiracy theories about COVID-19 may be especially likely to refuse a vaccine when one becomes available, a new study suggests.
Researchers said the results are not surprising. But they highlight how...
Related topics: Vaccines, Medical Research
President Donald Trump baselessly claimed six ballots cast for him had been found in a trash can, as part of his ongoing efforts to undermine confidence in the election. The president appeared on Fox Radio with host Brian Kilmeade, who tried to help...
Related topics: Donald Trump
This is crazy. The Star Tribune’s Stephen Montemayor reports: “At least a half-dozen Minnesota Republicans running for state legislative seats in November have promoted the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory that includes false claims that...
Twenty-seven-year-old Michael David Clark had no intention of going viral. The Hawaii-based firefighter’s social media footprint was small and straightforward: An Instagram account featuring scenic landscapes, motorcycles, friends, and, of course,...
Related topics: Social Media, Instagram
The term “conspiracy theory” is often associated with kooks and panic peddlers, who see nefarious secret forces leading us all to our doom. It’s linked to people pushing transparently silly-sounding tropes – like the QAnon clan who claim...
Related topics: Hillary Clinton
The Republican conspiracy theory that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not actually have a dying wish to have the winner of the 2020 election choose her replacement on the U.S. Supreme Court was on display on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “My most...
Related topics: Senate
Right-wing lies about Kamala Harris being ineligible to serve as vice president or president have grown larger than the similar conspiracy theory against Barack Obama, that was prominently and falsely pushed by Donald Trump. “Toxic...
Related topics: Barack Obama, Donald Trump
A GOP state lawmaker in Kentucky on Tuesday got called out by the president of his state’s top dental association for spouting conspiracy theories about fluoride in drinking water. As reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Alex...
It's election crunch time for Facebook and Twitter whose platforms were used to amplify falsehoods, conspiracy theories and divisive messages in 2016.
Related topics: Russia, Facebook, Social Media
One of the major and enduring theories is Princess Diana was pregnant with then-boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed's baby and planning to marry him ... before the royal family orchestrated the crash to stop her.
Area 51 is the common name of a highly classified US Air Force Base that was built in the middle of the 20th century. The secrecy surrounding the facility has given birth to many conspiracy theories. According to one, the site is being used to hide...
Related topics: Military
Wired: “It was as if YouTube had flipped a switch. In a way, it had. Scores of them, really—a small army of algorithmic tweaks, deployed beginning in 2019. Flat-earther Mark Sargent’s was among the first accounts to feel the effects of a...
As of Friday morning, the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States stands at roughly 198,000 people. Epidemiologists and other public health experts warn that the real number of deaths is much higher. By the end of this year,...
A vocal faction of Americans — some seeking high places — are trafficking in canards: 5G is deadly, COVID-19 is a hoax, blue state pedophiles roam the halls of Congress. No wonder they might also believe Tom Hanks — Tom Hanks! — is a...
Related topics: Tom Hanks
Podcast host Joe Rogan pushed a debunked claim that “left-wing” activists were lighting forests ablaze in Oregon on his show Thursday — giving credence to a conspiracy theory that has spread virally on social media.
“I actually...
Related topics: Activism, Podcasts, Social Media
In the United States and abroad, experts link the rise of extreme conspiratorial thinking to a broader atmosphere of political polarization, the insulating algorithms of social media and the relative success of demagogic, nationalist politicians.
Related topics: Algorithms, Social Media
For the first time, Facebook is releasing stats concerning how the social media platform moderates what goes on in Facebook Groups.
Alongside the new numbers, the company has also announced new policies surrounding how it will deal with conspiracy...
Related topics: Facebook, Social Media
Ahead of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned against the rapid rise in misinformation campaigns about vaccines, leading to “vaccine hesitancy and igniting wild conspiracy theories”....