The “need for chaos” is linked to the sharing of conspiracy theories, study finds



New research suggests that a psychological concept known as “the need for chaos” plays a bigger role than partisanship and ideology in the sharing of conspiracy theories on the internet. The study, published in Research & Politics, indicates that individuals driven by a desire to disrupt and challenge established systems are more inclined to share conspiracy theories.

The study was authored by Christina Farhart (assistant professor, Carleton College), Erin Fitz (PhD candidate, Colorado State University), Joanne Miller (professor, University of Delaware), and Kyle Saunders (professor, Colorado State University).

The authors wanted to explore three specific motivations behind the sharing of conspiracy theories: motivated sharing (sharing to bolster their or their group’s beliefs), sounding the alarm (sharing to generate collective action against a political outgroup due to feelings of losing), and the need for chaos (sharing to disrupt the political system regardless of partisanship or belief).

“We were motivated by prior research that revealed the relationship between the need for chaos and willingness to share conspiracy theories on social media,” the researchers told PsyPost.

“Although earlier work found a positive relationship between the need for chaos and sharing (and that the need for chaos superseded partisan motivations for sharing) these studies did not assess how the need for chaos affected sharing when pitted against a direct measure of conspiracy theory belief. Testing these mechanisms together is important because people who believe conspiracy theories might be more willing to share them online, but belief is not a necessary condition for sharing.”

To conduct the study, the researchers administered an original survey in December 2018 using the Lucid platform, which recruits online survey respondents in line with US Census demographics. The survey included questions about respondents’ beliefs in specific conspiracy theories and their willingness to share those conspiracy theories. A total of 3,336 respondents participated in the survey. Among them, 1,772 identified as Democrats/leaning Democrat, and 1,564 identified as Republicans/leaning Republican.

Motivated sharing was operationalized by assessing respondents’ beliefs in specific conspiracy theories and their willingness to share those conspiracy theories. The study examined how the willingness to share was related to whether the conspiracy theories aligned with respondents’ partisan identity.

For example, an item assessing Democratic-aligned conspiracy theories asked: “Some people believe Donald Trump is plotting with secret societies of white supremacists, such as the Ku Klux Klan, to take control of the United States. Others do not believe this. What do you think?”

On the other hand, an item assessing Republican-aligned conspiracy theories asked: “Some people believe that the Mueller investigation is not, in fact, an investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with the Russian government. Instead, they believe it is an investigation into nefarious activities, including child molestation and a variety of other crimes, perpetrated by the Clintons, Barack Obama, and other unelected people who are currently working behind the scenes to run the government. Others do not believe this. What do you think?”

To measure the “sounding the alarm” motivation, the researchers asked respondents about their perception of whether their political side was winning or losing more often on issues that mattered to them. The study explored how the feeling of being on the losing side influenced the willingness to share conspiracy theories.

The researchers employed the eight-item Need for Chaos scale to measure individuals’ desire for extreme disruption of the established democratic system. This scale aimed to assess whether individuals with a higher need for chaos were more likely to share conspiracy theories regardless of their truth value or partisanship.

Those with a high need for chaos agree with statements such as “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over” and “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on.”

The researchers also included various control variables to account for other factors that might influence respondents’ willingness to share conspiracy theories, such as their strength of partisan identity, authoritarianism, trust, religiosity, education, income, gender, age, ethnicity, and race.

After controlling for these variables, the researchers confirmed that the need for chaos was positively associated with the willingness to share conspiracy theories on social media. Individuals with a higher need for chaos were more likely to express willingness to share all six conspiracy theories included in the study.

They also found that individuals who believed in a conspiracy theory were more willing to share that theory on social media. In other words, belief in a conspiracy theory was a strong predictor of the willingness to share it.

“While we also found that those with a higher need for chaos consistently expressed greater willingness to share conspiracy theories on social media, our results ultimately indicated that belief in conspiracy theories was the strongest predictor of willingness to share,” the researchers told PsyPost. “These findings contribute to our understanding of why people share conspiracy theories by suggesting that, whereas some individuals share specifically to impugn political rivals, others do so to challenge the entire political system.”

Surprisingly, loser perceptions (feeling that one’s side is losing in politics) were negatively associated with the willingness to share conspiracy theories. Those who perceived their side as currently winning more often than losing expressed greater willingness to share conspiracy theories.

Contrary to expectations, the researchers also did not find a significant relationship between partisanship or ideology and the willingness to share conspiracy theories. Partisanship and ideology did not robustly predict the sharing of either ideologically-aligned or ideologically-inconsistent conspiracy theories.

The study, like all research, also includes some caveats. The study is observational, meaning it’s based on observing and analyzing existing behaviors rather than manipulating variables. This prevents the researchers from drawing causal conclusions about the relationships between motives, beliefs, and sharing behavior.

“Altogether, our findings reveal that prior notions of partisanship and chaos as drivers of sharing hostile political rumors (including [conspiracy theories]) are perhaps more nuanced than extant literature suggests,” the researchers concluded.

The study, “By any memes necessary: Belief- and chaos-driven motives for sharing conspiracy theories on social media“, was published online August 1, 2023.

© PsyPost

Intelligence doesn’t make you immune to conspiracy theories – it’s more about thinking style

THE CONVERSATION
Published: January 30, 2024 


Over the last two decades, and in particular over the last five years, there has been a growing scientific interest in conspiracy theories and people who believe in them. Although, some may think belief in such stories is linked to intelligence, research is beginning to show that how people think could be more important.

Scientists agree that having a measure of skepticism about official accounts of events is healthy and important, but conspiracy theorising can lead to dangerous consequences for the individual and for society.

Some conspiracy theories, for example the QAnon conspiracy, can be considered a minority belief, with a 2021 YouGov poll showing that 8% of those polled in the UK endorsed this conspiracy theory. However, some beliefs are more widespread. A 2018 survey of people from around Europe found 60% of British participants endorsed at least one conspiracy theory. So, who are the people who are more susceptible to conspiracy theorising?

There is a dramatically growing body of research endeavouring to understand this question. First, let’s re-examine those assumptions about who engages with conspiracy theories.

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People with high education levels, such as doctors and nurses, have been reported to propagate conspiracy theories. So it’s not just about intelligence – education won’t necessarily make you immune.

Read more: How morbid curiosity can lead people to conspiracy theories

Critical thinking

Research shows that our thinking style can be predictive of susceptibility to conspiracy theories. The dual processing theory of cognitive style suggests that we have two routes which we can use to process information.

One route is the fast, intuitive route which leans more on personal experiences and gut feelings. The other route is a slower, more analytical route which instead relies on elaborative and detailed processing of information.

Conspiracy theory belief seems to be linked to thinking style. philippgehrke.de/Shutterstock

What you tend to see is that people who are not necessarily smarter but who favour the more effortful, analytical thinking style are more resistant to conspiracy beliefs. For example, a British 2014 study found that those who scored highly for questions such as “I enjoy problems that require hard thinking” were less likely to accept conspiracy beliefs. It also found those who were less likely to engage in effortful thinking styles and more likely to use intuitive thinking showed a higher belief in conspiracy theories.

Similarly, a 2022 study across 45 countries used a cognitive reflection test, which measured engagement in analytical thinking in three questions. It found that participants who engaged in the labour intensive thinking style were less likely to endorse COVID 19 conspiracy theories.

Critical thinking is a valuable skill, particularly within education, and has been shown to buffer susceptibility to conspiracy beliefs. This is probably because this more arduous thinking style allows people time to identify inconsistencies in theories and look to additional resources to verify information.
Thinking style is not the same as intelligence

A 2021 meta-analysis study indicates that an intuitive thinking style is unrelated to intelligence. So, even really smart people could be susceptible to conspiracy beliefs – if they are more inclined to revert to faster, intuitive thinking styles.

Research shows that belief in conspiracy theories is predicted by cognitive biases that come from a reliance on mental shortcuts when processing information. First, conspiracy beliefs seem to be predicted by the flawed belief that big events must have big consequences.

This is known in psychology as proportionality bias. It is difficult to accept that events which have such world-changing consequences (for example, the death of a president or the COVID-19 outbreak) can really be caused by comparably “small” causes (for example, a lone gunman or a virus). This is how thinking styles reliant on gut feelings and intuition can lead people to endorse conspiracy theories.

Another example of intuitive thinking styles influencing conspiracy beliefs is the conjunction fallacy. A conjunction fallacy is the erroneous belief that the likelihood of two independent events occurring together is higher than the probability of the events occurring alone. Have a try at the Linda Problem:

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable?

a) Linda is a bank teller.

b) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

The most probable is a) Linda is a bank teller as, statistically, the probably probability of one event occurring is always higher than the combination. However, research shows that higher conjunction fallacy errors are associated with stronger conspiracy beliefs. So people prone to conspiratorial thinking would be more likely to say b.

Exposure to conspiracy beliefs have also consistently been shown to increase people’s susceptibility to them, even if they don’t realise that they have had a change in belief.

It may sound concerning that anyone could be susceptible to conspiracy beliefs. However, these studies are helping researchers find interventions which can increase analytical and critical thinking styles and so buffer against susceptibility to such beliefs. A 2023 review of 25 different studies found these types of interventions were a promising tool to tackle the dangerous consequences of conspiracy beliefs.

The more we understand about the psychology behind conspiracy theories, the better equipped we are to tackle them.

Author

Darel Cookson
Lecturer in Psychology, Nottingham Trent University

Beliefs in conspiracy theories may not be increasing

New findings challenge widespread perceptions by the public, scholars, journalists, and policymakers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: “CONSPIRACY” TYPED OUT ON A TYPEWRITER. view more 

CREDIT: MARKUS WINKLER, UNSPLASH, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

A new analysis contradicts popular thinking about beliefs in conspiracy theories, suggesting that such beliefs may not have actually increased over time. Joseph Uscinski of the University of Miami, Florida, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 20, 2022.

Belief in a conspiracy theory involves holding the opinion that a small group of people has covertly coordinated to cause a certain event or circumstance, despite a lack of appropriate evidence. In recent years, the perception that beliefs in conspiracy theories have increased has become widespread among the general public, as well as among scholars, journalists, and policymakers, with many blaming social media. However, few studies have examined whether such perceptions actually hold true.

To help clarify whether beliefs in conspiracy theories are increasing, Uscinski and colleagues conducted four different survey analyses. For the first, they investigated whether beliefs in certain conspiracy theories—including theories related to COVID-19 and the Kennedy assassination—have increased among Americans. The second analysis evaluated beliefs in conspiracy theories, such as the idea that human-driven global warming is a hoax, in six European countries. The third analysis addressed Americans’ beliefs in which specific groups are conspiring, and the fourth measured general lines of thought in the U.S. linked to belief in conspiracy theories.

In all four analyses, the researchers found no statistically significant evidence that beliefs in conspiracy theories have increased over time. A greater number of beliefs in specific theories decreased than increased over time, and of those that did increase, none involved the COVID-19 pandemic nor QAnon.

The researchers emphasize the importance of caution in making inferences based in their findings and note that additional research will be needed to confirm the findings and to better understand beliefs in conspiracy theories, such as their psychological underpinnings and how they are promoted.

Nonetheless, these findings suggest that beliefs in conspiracy theories exist at certain baseline levels that may be concerning, and perhaps these levels are only now becoming more apparent to the public.

Dr. Adam Enders adds: “Despite popular claims about America slipping down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole into a state of post-truth, we do not find that conspiracism has increased over time. We examine beliefs in dozens of specific conspiracy theories, perceptions of who is likely to be involved in conspiracy theories, and the general predisposition to interpret events and circumstances as the product of conspiracy theories––in no case do we observe an average increase in conspiracy beliefs.”

Dr. Joseph Uscinski adds: “Some conspiracy theories are gaining in popularity, but many are not. At any given time, perhaps because of political circumstances, some conspiracy theories will be more attractive, but at the same time, many other will recede into history.”

#####

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0270429

Citation: Uscinski J, Enders A, Klofstad C, Seelig M, Drochon H, Premaratne K, et al. (2022) Have beliefs in conspiracy theories increased over time? PLoS ONE 17(7): e0270429. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270429

Author Countries: U.S.A., U.K.

Funding: National Science Foundation Grant #2123635 paid for effort by JU, CK, MS, KP, and MM’s efforts. URL: https://www.nsf.gov/. Portions of the data used in this study was funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Project title: Conspiracy and Democracy URL: https://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/former-schemes/conspiracy-and-democracy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

---

JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0270429 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Have beliefs in conspiracy theories increased over time?

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-Jul-2022

Takeaways from the AP's look at the role of conspiracy theories in American politics and society

DAVID KLEPPER
Updated Wed, January 31, 2024 

This image provided by the Adventist Digital Library shows part of a Millerite document circulated on Oct. 16, 1844, in the Boston area, with a headline reading, "End of the World, October 22, 1844!!" Before the appointed day, many of William Miller’s followers sold or gave away their possessions, donned white clothing and headed for high land — in some parts of Massachusetts they climbed trees on the highest hills — so as to hasten their reunion with God. 

(Adventist Digital Library via AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Conspiracy theories have a long history.

Humans have always speculated about secret motives and plots as a way to understand their world and avoid danger.

These days, however, conspiracy theories and those who believe them seem to be playing an outsize role in politics and culture.

Republican Donald Trump has amplified conspiracy theories about climate change, elections, voting and crime, and has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. His lies about the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden spurred the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, an event that quickly spun off its own conspiracy theories.

On the left, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has exploited conspiracy theories about vaccines to wage his own campaign for the presidency this year.

Conspiracy theories have also proven lucrative for those cashing in on unfounded medical claims, investment proposals or fake news websites.

The Associated Press has examined the history of conspiracy theories in the United States.

Interviews with experts on technology, psychology and politics give insight into why people choose to believe and spread conspiracy theories, and how those beliefs are affecting our mental health, our politics and our society.

A look at some of the biggest takeaways from the investigation:

A LONG HISTORY

Conspiracy theories exposed social tensions long before the American Revolution and the birth of U.S. democracy.

Just as now, early conspiracy theories reflected popular worries of the day. In the years immediately after the American Revolution, rumors and hoaxes circulated about dark plots by the Illuminati and Freemasons, suggesting those secret organizations wanted to control the republic.

Likewise, the conspiracy theories of the modern age often reflect uncertainties about technology, immigration and government overreach. Stories about UFO coverups, microchips in vaccines or the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, being an inside job are examples.

While the specific claims in many of these tales can be debunked, the stories reflect anxieties shared by millions of people.

“We are the stories we tell ourselves,” said John Llewellyn, a professor at Wake Forest University who studies conspiracy theories and why people believe what they believe.

WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE

Humans thirst for information that can help them protect themselves and help them make better decisions for the future. This information, along with personal experiences, upbringing and cultural perspectives, creates a view of the world that helps people understand big events and forces in their lives.

Disasters, elections, wars and even the outcomes of sporting events can shake our perspective, and make us look for explanations. Sometimes that means accepting the facts. But sometimes it can be easier to embrace an alternative explanation.

Conspiracy theories can act as a shortcut to understanding. They fill in the gaps of understanding with speculation that often reflects more about the believer's inner beliefs than the events themselves. Conspiracy theories suggesting vaccinations are being used to implant microchips in people, for instance, reflect concerns about technology, medicine and government power.

With the internet, false claims and conspiracy theories can travel further and faster than ever. Social media algorithms prioritize content that elicits strong emotions, like anger and fear.

FACING THE DEMONS

The AP interviewed dozens of current and former conspiracy theory believers to understand what led them to believe. They consistently said conspiracy theories offered them a sense of power and control in a world that can seem random and chaotic.

“The pieces did not fit,” said Melissa Sell, a conspiracy theorist from Pennsylvania who began doubting the official narrative of history after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut in 2012.

They spoke of growing distrust of democratic institutions and the media, and a gnawing feeling they were being lied to. The world of online conspiracy theories offered answers, and a built-in community of like-minded people.

“I was suicidal before I got into conspiracy theories,” said Antonio Perez, a Hawaii man who became obsessed with Sept. 11 conspiracy theories and QAnon until he decided that they were interfering with his life. But when he first found other online conspiracy theorists, he was ecstatic. “It’s like: My God, I’ve finally found my people!”

TURNING IDEAS INTO ACTION

Polls show nearly half of Americans believe a conspiracy theory and that those beliefs are almost always harmless. But when fringe views interfere with a person's job or relationships, they can lead to social isolation. And when people put their conspiracy theory beliefs into action, it can lead to violence.

In recent years, conspiracy theorists have tried to stop vaccine clinics, they've attacked election officials and they've committed murders that they say were motivated by their beliefs. The Jan. 6 riot is perhaps the most notable example of how conspiracy theories can lead to violence: The thousands of people who stormed the Capitol and fought with police were motivated by Trump's election lies.

Such rapidly spreading disinformation fuels extremist groups and encourages distrust — a particular concern during a year of big elections in the U.S. and other nations. Russia, China, Iran and other U.S. adversaries have worked to amplify conspiracy theories as a way to destabilize democracy further. Artificial intelligence's ability to rapidly create lifelike video and audio only increases the challenge.

“I think the post-truth world may be a lot closer than we’d like to believe,” said A.J. Nash, vice president for intelligence at ZeroFox, a cybersecurity firm that tracks disinformation. “What happens when no one believes anything anymore?”

PROFITING OFF BELIEF

As long as there have been conspiracy theories, people have tried to make a buck off of them. A century or more ago, peddlers went from town to town selling tonics and pills that they said could cure just about any problem. Nowadays, sales take place online. Business is booming.

There are supplements that claim to reverse aging, bogus treatments for COVID-19, T-shirts, investment scams claiming a new financial order is just around the corner.

The AP took a close look at conspiracy theories involving medbeds, which are futuristic-looking devices that believers think can reverse aging and cure a long list of illnesses. According to claims circulating online, the U.S. military is hiding the technology from the public but Trump, if he wins another term as president, will make them available for free. For people desperate to find help with a medical condition, the claims can be too tempting to ignore.

“There have always been hucksters selling medical cures, but I do feel like it’s accelerating,” said Timothy Caulfield, a health policy and law professor at the University of Alberta who studies medical ethics and fraud. “There are some forces driving that: obviously the internet and social media, and distrust of traditional medicine, traditional science. Conspiracy theories are creating and feeding this distrust.”

Grave peril of digital conspiracy theories: 'What happens when no one believes anything anymore?'

DAVID KLEPPER
Wed, January 31, 2024 







WASHINGTON (AP) — Days after Maui's wildfires killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes last August, a shocking claim spread with alarming speed on YouTube and TikTok: The blaze on the Hawaiian island was set deliberately, using futuristic energy weapons developed by the U.S. military.

Claims of “evidence” soon emerged: video footage on TikTok showing a beam of blinding white light, too straight to be lightning, zapping a residential neighborhood and sending flames and smoke into the sky. The video was shared many millions of times, amplified by neo-Nazis, anti-government radicals and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and presented as proof that America's leaders had turned on the country's citizens.

“What if Maui was just a practice run?” one woman asked on TikTok. “So that the government can use a direct energy weapon on us?”


The TikTok clip had nothing to do with the Maui fires. It was actually video of an electrical transformer explosion in Chile earlier in the year. But that didn't stop a TikTok user with a habit of posting conspiracy videos from using the clip to sow more fear and doubt. It was just one of severalsimilarvideos and images doctored and passed off as proof that the wildfires were no accident.

Conspiracy theories have a long history in America, but now they can be fanned around the globe in seconds, amplified by social media, further eroding truth with a newfound destructive force.

With the United States and many other nations facing big elections in 2024, , the perils of rapidly spreading disinformation, using ever more sophisticated technology such as artificial intelligence, now also threaten democracy itself — both by fueling extremist groups and by encouraging distrust.

“I think the post-truth world may be a lot closer than we’d like to believe,” said A.J. Nash, vice president for intelligence at ZeroFox, a cybersecurity firm that tracks disinformation. “What happens when no one believes anything anymore?”

Extremists and authoritarians deploy disinformation as potent weapons used to recruit new followers and expand their reach, using fake video and photos to fool their followers.

And even when they fail to convince people, the conspiracy theories embraced by these groups contribute to mounting distrust of authorities and democratic institutions, causing people to reject reliable sources of information while encouraging division and suspicion.

Melissa Sell, a 33-year-old Pennsylvania resident, is among those who has lost faith in the facts.

“If it’s a big news story on the TV, the majority of the time it’s to distract us from something else. Every time you turn around, there’s another news story with another agenda distracting all of us,” she said. Sell thinks the Maui wildfires may have been intentionally set, perhaps to distract the public, perhaps to test a new weapon. “Because the government has been caught in lies before, how do you know?” she said.

Absent meaningful federal regulations governing social media platforms, it's largely left to Big Tech companies to police their own sites, leading to confusing, inconsistent rules and enforcement. Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, says it makes an effort to remove extremist content. Platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Telegram and far-right sites like Gab, allow it to flourish.

Federal election officials and some lawmakers have suggested regulations governing AI, including rules that would require political campaigns to label AI-generated images used in its ads. But those proposals wouldn't affect the ability of extremist groups or foreign governments to use AI to mislead Americans.

Meanwhile, U.S.-based tech platforms have rolled back their efforts to root out misinformation and hate speech, following the lead of Elon Musk, who fired most of the content moderators when he purchased X.

“There's been a big step backward,” said Evan Hansen, the former editor of Wired.com who was Twitter's director of curation before leaving when Musk purchased the platform. “It’s gotten to be a very difficult job for the casual observer to figure out: What do I believe here?”

Hansen said a combination of government regulations, voluntary action by tech titans and public awareness will be needed to combat the coming wave of synthetic media. He noted the Israel-Hamas war has already seen a deluge of fake and altered photos and video. Elections in the U.S. and around the world this year will create similar opportunities for digital mischief.

The disinformation spread by extremist groups and even politicians like former President Donald Trump can create the conditions for violence, by demonizing the other side, targeting democratic institutions and convincing their supporters that they're in an existential struggle against those who don't share their beliefs.

Trump has spread lies about elections, voting and his opponents for years. Building on his specious claims of a deep state that controls the federal government, he has echoed QAnon and other conspiracy theories and encouraged his followers to see their government as an enemy. He even suggested that now-retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, whom Trump himself nominated to be the top U.S. military officer during his administration, was a traitor and deserved execution. Milley said he has had to take security precautions to protect his family.

The list of incidents blamed on extremists motivated by conspiracy theories is growing. The Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, attacks on vaccine clinics, anti-immigrant fervor in Spain; and anti-Muslim hate in India: All were carried out by people who believed conspiracy theories about their opponents and who decided violence was an appropriate response.

Polls and research surveys on conspiracy theories show about half of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory, and those views seldom lead to violence or extremism. But for some, these beliefs can lead to social isolation and radicalization, interfering with their relationships, career and finances. For an even smaller subset, they can lead to violence.

The credible data that exists on crimes motivated by conspiracy theories shows a disturbing increase. In 2019, researchers at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism identified six violent attacks in which perpetrators said their actions were prompted by a conspiracy theory. In 2020, the year of the most recent survey, there were 116.

Laws designed to rein in the power of social media and artificial intelligence to spread disinformation aren't likely to pass before the 2024 election, and even if they are, enforcement will be a challenge, according to AI expert Vince Lynch, CEO of the tech company IV.AI.

“This is happening now, and it's one of the reasons why our society seems so fragmented," Lynch said. “Hopefully there may be AI regulation someday, but we are already through the looking glass. I do think it's already too late.”

To believers, the facts don’t matter.

“You can create the universe you want,” said Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who studies online harassment and extremism. “If the truth doesn’t matter, and there is no accountability for these false beliefs, then people will start to act on them.”

Sell, the conspiracy theorist from Pennsylvania, said she began to lose trust in the government and the media shortly after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 students and six educators dead. Sell thought the shooter looked too small and weak to carry out such a bloody act, and the gut-wrenching interviews with stricken loved ones seemed too perfect, almost practiced.

“It seemed scripted,” she said. “The pieces did not fit.”

That idea — that the victims of the rampage were actors hired as part of a plot to push gun control laws — was notably spread by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The families of Sandy Hook victims sued, and the Infowars host was later ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages.

Claims that America's elected leaders and media cannot be trusted feature heavily in many conspiracy theories with ties to extremism.

In 2018, a committed conspiracy theorist from Florida mailed pipe bombs to CNN, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and several other top Democrats; the man’s social media feed was littered with posts about child sacrifice and chemtrails — the debunked claim that airplane vapor clouds contain chemicals or biological agents being used to control the population.

In another act of violence tied to QAnon, a California man was charged with using a speargun to kill his two children in 2021. He told an FBI agent that he had been enlightened by QAnon conspiracy theories and had become convinced that his wife “possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children.”

In 2022, a Colorado woman was found guilty of attempting to kidnap her son from foster care after her daughter said she began associating with QAnon supporters. Other adherents have been accused of environmental vandalism, firing paintballs at military reservists, abducting a child in France and even killing a New York City mob boss.

The coronavirus pandemic, with its attendant social isolation, created ideal conditions for new conspiracy theories as the virus spread fear and uncertainty around the globe. Vaccine clinics were attacked, doctors and nurses threatened. 5G communication towers were vandalized and burned as a wild theory spread claiming they were being used to activate microchips hidden in the vaccine. Fears about vaccines led one Wisconsin pharmacist to destroy a batch of the highly sought after immunizations, while bogus claims about supposed COVID-19 treatments and cures led to hospitalizations and death.

Few recent events, however, display the power of conspiracy theories like the Jan. 6 insurrection, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, vandalized the offices of Congress and fought with police in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.

More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. About 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials. Over 750 have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving some term of imprisonment, according to data compiled by The Associated Press. Many of those charged said they had bought into Trump’s conspiracy theories about a stolen election.

“We, meaning Trump supporters, were lied to,” wrote Jan. 6 defendant Robert Palmer in a letter to a judge, who later sentenced him to more than five years for attacking police. “They kept spitting out the false narrative about a stolen election and how it was ‘our duty’ to stand up to tyranny.”

Many conspiracy theorists reject any link between their beliefs and violence, saying they're being blamed for the actions of a tiny few. Others insist these incidents never occurred, and that events like the Jan. 6 attack were actually false-flag events concocted by the government and media.

“Lies, lies lies: They're lying to you over and over and over again,” said Steve Girard, a Pennsylvania man who has protested the incarceration of Jan. 6 defendants. He spoke to the AP while waving a large American flag on a busy street in Washington.

While they may have taken on a bigger role in our politics, surveys show that belief in conspiracy theories hasn't changed much over the years, according to Joe Uscinski, a University of Miami professor and an expert on the history of conspiracy theories. He said he believes that while the internet plays a role in spreading conspiracy theories, most of the blame lies with the politicians who exploit believers.

“Who was the bigger spreader of COVID misinformation: some guy with four followers on Twitter or the president of the United States? The problem is our politicians,” Uscinski said. “Jan. 6 happened, and people said: ‘Oh, this is Facebook’s fault.’ No, the president of the United States told his followers to be at this place, at this time and to fight like hell.”

Governments in Russia, China, Iran and elsewhere have also pushed extremist content on social media as part of their efforts to destabilize Western democracy. Russia has amplified numerous anti-U.S. conspiracy theories, including ones claiming the U.S. runs secret germ warfare labs and created HIV as a bioweapon, as well as conspiracy theories accusing Ukraine of being a Nazi state.

China has helped spread claims that the U.S. created COVID-19 as a bioweapon.

Tom Fishman, the CEO at the nonprofit Starts With Us, said that Americans can take steps to defend the social fabric by turning off their computer and meeting the people they disagree with. He said Americans must remember what ties them together.

“We can look at the window and see foreshadowing of what could happen if we don’t: threats to a functioning democracy, threats of violence against elected leaders,” he said. “We have a civic duty to get this right.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CONSPIRACY THEORIES 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for AMERICAN CONSPIRACIES 

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Coronavirus, ‘Plandemic’ and the seven traits of conspiratorial thinking

May 16, 2020 The Conversation


The conspiracy theory video “Plandemic” recently went viral. Despite being taken down by YouTube and Facebook, it continues to get uploaded and viewed millions of times. The video is an interview with conspiracy theorist Judy Mikovits, a disgraced former virology researcher who believes the COVID-19 pandemic is based on vast deception, with the purpose of profiting from selling vaccinations.

The video is rife with misinformation and conspiracy theories. Many high-quality fact-checks and debunkings have been published by reputable outlets such as Science, Politifact and FactCheck.

As scholars who research how to counter science misinformation and conspiracy theories, we believe there is also value in exposing the rhetorical techniques used in “Plandemic.” As we outline in our Conspiracy Theory Handbook and How to Spot COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories, there are seven distinctive traits of conspiratorial thinking. “Plandemic” offers textbook examples of them all

Learning these traits can help you spot the red flags of a baseless conspiracy theory and hopefully build up some resistance to being taken in by this kind of thinking. This is an important skill given the current surge of pandemic-fueled conspiracy theories.

The seven traits of conspiratorial thinking.
John Cook, CC BY-ND

1. Contradictory beliefs

Conspiracy theorists are so committed to disbelieving an official account, it doesn’t matter if their belief system is internally contradictory. The “Plandemic” video advances two false origin stories for the coronavirus. It argues that SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab in Wuhan – but also argues that everybody already has the coronavirus from previous vaccinations, and wearing masks activates it. Believing both causes is mutually inconsistent.

2. Overriding suspicion

Conspiracy theorists are overwhelmingly suspicious toward the official account. That means any scientific evidence that doesn’t fit into the conspiracy theory must be faked.

But if you think the scientific data is faked, that leads down the rabbit hole of believing that any scientific organization publishing or endorsing research consistent with the “official account” must be in on the conspiracy. For COVID-19, this includes the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, Anthony Fauci… basically, any group or person who actually knows anything about science must be part of the conspiracy.

3. Nefarious intent

In a conspiracy theory, the conspirators are assumed to have evil motives. In the case of “Plandemic,” there’s no limit to the nefarious intent. The video suggests scientists including Anthony Fauci engineered the COVID-19 pandemic, a plot which involves killing hundreds of thousands of people so far for potentially billions of dollars of profit.

Conspiratorial thinking finds evil intentions at all levels of the presumed conspiracy.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

4. Conviction something’s wrong

Conspiracy theorists may occasionally abandon specific ideas when they become untenable. But those revisions tend not to change their overall conclusion that “something must be wrong” and that the official account is based on deception.

When “Plandemic” filmmaker Mikki Willis was asked if he really believed COVID-19 was intentionally started for profit, his response was “I don’t know, to be clear, if it’s an intentional or naturally occurring situation. I have no idea.”

He has no idea. All he knows for sure is something must be wrong: “It’s too fishy.”

5. Persecuted victim

Conspiracy theorists think of themselves as the victims of organized persecution. “Plandemic” further ratchets up the persecuted victimhood by characterizing the entire world population as victims of a vast deception, which is disseminated by the media and even ourselves as unwitting accomplices.

At the same time, conspiracy theorists see themselves as brave heroes taking on the villainous conspirators.

6. Immunity to evidence

It’s so hard to change a conspiracy theorist’s mind because their theories are self-sealing. Even absence of evidence for a theory becomes evidence for the theory: The reason there’s no proof of the conspiracy is because the conspirators did such a good job covering it up.

7. Reinterpreting randomness

Conspiracy theorists see patterns everywhere – they’re all about connecting the dots. Random events are reinterpreted as being caused by the conspiracy and woven into a broader, interconnected pattern. Any connections are imbued with sinister meaning.

For example, the “Plandemic” video suggestively points to the U.S. National Institutes of Health funding that has gone to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. This is despite the fact that the lab is just one of many international collaborators on a project that sought to examine the risk of future viruses emerging from wildlife.Learning about common traits of conspiratorial thinking can help you recognize and resist conspiracy theories.
Critical thinking is the antidote

As we explore in our Conspiracy Theory Handbook, there are a variety of strategies you can use in response to conspiracy theories.

One approach is to inoculate yourself and your social networks by identifying and calling out the traits of conspiratorial thinking. Another approach is to “cognitively empower” people, by encouraging them to think analytically. The antidote to conspiratorial thinking is critical thinking, which involves healthy skepticism of official accounts while carefully considering available evidence.

Understanding and revealing the techniques of conspiracy theorists is key to inoculating yourself and others from being misled, especially when we are most vulnerable: in times of crises and uncertainty.


John Cook, Research Assistant Professor, Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University; Sander van der Linden, Director, Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab, University of Cambridge; Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol, and Ullrich Ecker, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science, University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

FILM
Tracing conspiracy theories in film

Oliver Stone's 1991 movie about the Kennedy assassination was a masterpiece of the genre. While many of these films come from Hollywood, there’s also a history of conspiracy films in Germany.

ALL MADE UP? CONSPIRACY THEORIES IN MOVIES
'JFK' (1991)
US director Oliver Stone has often dealt with conspiracies in his films. His 1991 movie "JFK" looks into the alleged cover-up of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Prosecutor Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) does not believe that a lone gunman killed JFK; his theory is that a widespread network, the "deep state," is behind the assassination.

Presumably, no one has ever postulated the following theory: that the coronavirus was brought into the world by the powerful lobby surrounding streaming giants Netflix, Amazon and others as a way to bring their competitors — the movie theaters — to their knees.

This is, of course, absolute nonsense. And yet, nobody can rule out that there's someone in the world would actually make such an absurd claim. No conspiracy theory seems to be crazy enough that it would not be written down on paper or spread indiscriminately on the internet.

Read more: Opinion: Conspiracy theories on the rise

Conspiracy theories are not theories at all - but irrational mind games

In these times, when conspiracy theories are running rampant in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, it is worth taking a look back at film history. But before we do that, we have to take note that the term "conspiracy theory" in itself is nonsensical. After all, we are not talking about actual theories, but instead about "myths," "narratives," and even "fairy tales." Those terms seem more appropriate because conspiracy theories usually have less to do with "theory" than with what they're actually directed at.

The Vietnam trauma encouraged conspiracy theories in the US: Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway in the paranoia thriller "The Three Days of Condor"

The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 led to a whole flood of conspiracy theories. At times, people claimed it was the CIA who had conducted the assassination; sometimes it was the Soviet Union, sometimes the Cubans or Cuban exiles. Then there is the theory that members of the mafia perpetrated the assassination; another theory is the later Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson or George Bush Senior were behind it.

And these are just some of the more "serious" theories — if you can use that adjective in this context at all. Some of the more bizarre "theories" claim that homosexuals or UFOs played a major role in the murder.

Popular films revolving around political-economic conspiracies: JFK

At some point, of course, the film industry began tapping into such notions. Since the murder of Kennedy still doesn't seem to be completely solved, authors, producers and directors have had plenty of freedom in concocting their own stories.

Where facts remain hidden, it's easy to speculate. Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK (see article image) is still the most popular film about the Kennedy murder today. Kevin Costner, who starred in the film, was at the height of his career at the time, as was US director Oliver Stone.

For all its cinematic brilliance, Stone's film fueled further speculations about the masterminds behind the assassination. Director Stone's focus was mainly on the arms industry. The idea was that arms producers were allegedly behind the assassination, as Kennedy aimed to end the Cold War.

The logic was that, with no threat of war and no arms race, fewer weapons would be purchased, resulting in declining revenue for the industry. According to the thesis expressed in the film, the person responsible for this development — President Kennedy — had to be eliminated.

Cinema and conspiracy theories — populist, entertaining, critical

Cinema has always enjoyed taking up conspiracy theories; as popular subjects they either reveal true conspiracies or only deal in speculation.

Some films have fueled conspiracy theories, with the anti-Semitic propaganda movies of Nazi Germany being a particularly grave example. Films that critically question conspiracy theories also exist.

Read more: Conspiracies are always 'theories of power'

Many films on the subject have been created in Hollywood, perhaps due to the powerful film industry there with all its creative possibilities and imaginative minds. But there are probably other reasons as well: In the current heated atmosphere in the US, where the president in particular deals in fringe theories, the climate for conspiracy theories appears to be flourishing.

Perhaps it also has to do with the size of the US, the relative independence of the states, the citizens' love of freedom and the physical distance to the capital, Washington DC, from most parts of the country. A lack of education always fosters conspiracy theories — an issue which may also apply to parts of the US.
A German silent movie with a conspiracy theme: Fritz Lang's "The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse"

But German cinema has also contributed a great deal to the subject. Even during the heyday of Weimar cinema, when people acted in silent movies, the topic of conspiracies was repeatedly addressed, such as in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Fritz Lang's Mabuse films, as well as his masterpiece Metropolis, — all of which look atconspiracies in one way or another.

It's also easy to imagine that in just a few years, there will be a whole new wave of conspiracy film thrillers dealing with the subject of the coronavirus.

DW RECOMMENDS


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'Pandemic populism': Germany sees rise in conspiracy theories

With the COVID-19 crisis sparking uncertainty, conspiracy theories are booming in Germany. Right-wing activists in particular are trying to stir up hatred against politicians and the democratic system, a new study warns. (26.04.2020)

Coronavirus: How do I recognize a conspiracy theory?

Conspiracy theories are coming in hard and fast during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of them even sound plausible. So it's important to know: what makes a conspiracy theory? And why are they so popular? (19.05.2020)

All made up? Conspiracy theories in movies

Against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, Germany abounds with conspiracy theories. Movies have for decades been devoted to all kinds of conspiracies — including those that actually exist. (19.05.2020)


Date 19.05.2020
Author Jochen Kürten (als)
Related Subjects Fritz Lang, Oliver Stone
Keywords conspiracy theories, film, movies, Oliver Stone, Fritz Lang, John F. Kennedy

Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3cTeY

The Origin of American Conspiracy Theories

Americans are fascinated with conspiracy theories, in fact they generate the majority of them. Along with religious revivalism, conspiracy theories are second nature in the body politic of America.

Here is a fascinating thesis that shows that the conspiracy theory meme began in America with its founding during the revolutionary war. And since then conspiracy theory has dominated American politics.

Be it in the religious revivalism of the 1800's, the anti-Masonry movement, or the later Know Nothings, through out the history of American politics conspiracy theories have abounded, and have had major political impact. They are as American as apple pie.

This is a PhD. Thesis and is a full length book available for download as a PDF.

Conspiracy Theory and the Society of the Cincinnati, 1783-1790


At the same time, I became aware of a tradition of radical political dissent in
modern America, an abundance of conspiracy theories that also extended into popular culture. It was the time of Timothy McVeigh and the militia movement, of Waco, Ruby Ridge, Pat Robertson, and the X-Files. Suddenly conspiratorial explanations for current and historical events seemed everywhere. From Richard Hofstadter’s writings I realized that conspiracy theories occurred in episodic waves throughout American history, and from Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood I learned that the founding fathers believed in a secret English plot against American liberty. I decided to investigate, but soon became aware that other scholars were already writing on conspiracy theories in post-World War II America. Clearly, I had to look off the beaten path for a case study in American political “paranoia.”

It was then that I remembered a somewhat obscure document from my studies
on the Connecticut ratification debates. Just before the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, Dr. Benjamin Gale, an eccentric physician from Killingworth, wrote a long letter to Erasmus Wolcott.

In this diatribe, Gale complained about the machinations of the Society of the Cincinnati, a veterans organization of officers of the Continental Army. Gale charged that all the talk about the weakness of the Articles of Confederation was merely a smokescreen for the treasonous ambition of the Cincinnati. According to Gale, this society planned to establish a military dictatorship or monarchy and assume the mantle of hereditary nobility for themselves. Gale was obviously an Antifederalist, one who not only attacked the movement for a new Constitution as unnecessary and dangerous, but who felt it was the result of a deliberate conspiracy against American freedom.

I had found my topic. Apparently, a conspiracy theory existed in the 1780s, the
very period when the political culture and system of the United States was taking
shape, and it accused the leaders of the Continental Army of anti-republican subversion.

Small wonder then that such discourses of radical suspicion surfaced periodically
over the course of American history. If some American revolutionaries felt that even George Washington and Henry Knox could be traitors, we should not be surprised that so many Americans question the report of the Warren commission or distrust the federal government and the United Nations. The Deepest Piece of Cunning is a journey to the origins of conspiracy theories in the United States. It should shed some light on the political controversies of the 1780s as well as the persistence of conspiracy theories in American political culture.

Abstract

In May 1783, the officers of the Continental Army of the United States of America
organized themselves into the Society of the Cincinnati. Soon after, the veterans
organization became the focus of an elaborate conspiracy theory which falsely accused the officers of trying to establish a hereditary nobility and subvert the young republic.

Over the course of the mid-1780s, prominent revolutionary politicans such as John Adams and Elbridge Gerry joined in the outcry. The conspiracy theory became a major political controversy, and even impeded efforts to reform the Articles of Confederation.

However, despite their frantic tone and lack of a factual basis, the accusations were not merely a fringe phenomenon created by political crackpots. Instead, the conspiracy theory was deeply embedded in American political culture. When the political and economic problems of the 1780s threatened to disrupt the republican experiment, many revolutionaries looked for a threat that might explain the crisis. They found that threat in the Cincinnati, whose military background, federal organization, and aristocratic trappings made them suspect.

See:

1666 The Creation Of The World

Once More On the Fourth

Conspiracy Theory or Ruling Class Studies

Bilderberg

Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy

Ruling Class

Freemasons



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How conspiracy theories emerge -- and how their storylines fall apart

UCLA research uses artificial intelligence to analyze differences between a true story and a completely fabricated one

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LOS ANGELES

 

A new study by UCLA professors offers a new way to understand how unfounded conspiracy theories emerge online. The research, which combines sophisticated artificial intelligence and a deep knowledge of how folklore is structured, explains how unrelated facts and false information can connect into a narrative framework that would quickly fall apart if some of those elements are taken out of the mix.

The authors, from the UCLA College and the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, illustrated the difference in the storytelling elements of a debunked conspiracy theory and those that emerged when journalists covered an actual event in the news media. Their approach could help shed light on how and why other conspiracy theories, including those around COVID-19, spread -- even in the absence of facts.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed the spread of news about the 2013 "Bridgegate" scandal in New Jersey -- an actual conspiracy -- and the spread of misinformation about the 2016 "Pizzagate" myth, the completely fabricated conspiracy theory that a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant was the center of a child sex-trafficking ring that involved prominent Democratic Party officials, including Hillary Clinton.

The researchers used machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to analyze the information that spread online about the Pizzagate story. The AI automatically can tease out all of the people, places, things and organizations in a story spreading online -- whether the story is true or fabricated -- and identify how they are related to each other.

Finding the puzzle pieces

In either case -- whether for a conspiracy theory or an actual news story -- the narrative framework is established by the relationships among all of the elements of the storyline. And, it turns out, conspiracy theories tend to form around certain elements that act as the adhesive holding the facts and characters together.

"Finding narratives hidden in social media forums is like solving a huge jigsaw puzzle, with the added complication of noise, where many of the pieces are just irrelevant," said Vwani Roychowdhury, a UCLA professor of electrical and computer engineering and an expert in machine learning, and a lead author of the paper.

In recent years, researchers have made great strides in developing artificial intelligence tools that can analyze batches of text and identify the pieces to those puzzles. As the AI learns to identify patterns, identities and interactions that are embedded in words and phrases, the narratives begin to make "sense." Drawing from the massive amount of data available on social media, and because of improving technology, the systems are increasingly able to teach themselves to "read" narratives, almost as if they were human.

The visual representations of those story frameworks showed the researchers how false conspiracy theory narratives are held together by threads that connect multiple characters, places and things. But they found that if even one of those threads is cut, the other elements often can't form a coherent story without it.

"One of the characteristics of a conspiracy theory narrative framework is that it is easily 'disconnected,'" said Timothy Tangherlini, one of the paper's lead authors, a professor in the UCLA Scandinavian section whose scholarship focuses on folklore, legend and popular culture. "If you take out one of the characters or story elements of a conspiracy theory, the connections between the other elements of the story fall apart."

Which elements stick?

In contrast, he said, the stories around actual conspiracies -- because they're true -- tend to stand up even if any given element of the story is removed from the framework. Consider Bridgegate, for example, in which New Jersey officials closed several lanes of the George Washington Bridge for politically motivated reasons. Even if any number of threads were removed from the news coverage of the scandal, the story would have held together: All of the characters involved had multiple points of connection by way of their roles in New Jersey politics.

"They are all within the same domain, in this case New Jersey politics, which will continue to exist irrespective of the deletions," Tangherlini said. "Those connections don't require the same 'glue' that a conspiracy theory does."

Tangherlini calls himself a "computational folklorist." Over the past several years, he has collaborated regularly with Roychowdhury to better understand the spread of information around hot-button issues like the anti-vaccination movement.

To analyze Pizzagate, in which the conspiracy theory arose from a creative interpretation of hacked emails released in 2016 by Wikileaks, the researchers analyzed nearly 18,000 posts from April 2016 through February 2018 from discussion boards on the websites Reddit and Voat.

"When we looked at the layers and structure of the narrative about Pizzagate, we found that if you take out Wikileaks as one of the elements in the story, the rest of the connections don't hold up," Tangherlini said. "In this conspiracy, the Wikileaks email dump and how theorists creatively interpreted the content of what was in the emails are the only glue holding the conspiracy together."

The data generated by the AI analysis enabled the researchers to produce a graphic representation of narratives, with layers for major subplots of each story, and lines connecting the key people, places and institutions within and among those layers.

Quick build versus slow burn

Another difference that emerged between real and false narratives concerned the time they take to build. Narrative structures around conspiracy theories tend to build and become stable quickly, while narrative frameworks around actual conspiracies can take years to emerge, Tangherlini said. For example, the narrative framework of Pizzagate stabilized within a month after the Wikileaks dump, and it stayed relatively consistent over the next three years.

"The fact that additional information related to an actual conspiracy emerged over a prolonged period of time (here five and half years) might be one of the telltale signs of distinguishing a conspiracy from a conspiracy theory," the authors wrote in the study.

Tangherlini said it's becoming increasingly important to understand how conspiracy theories abound, in part because stories like Pizzagate have inspired some to take actions that endanger other people.

"The threat narratives found in conspiracy theories can imply or present strategies that encourage people to take real-world action," he said. "Edgar Welch went to that Washington pizzeria with a gun looking for supposed caves hiding victims of sex trafficking."

The UCLA researchers have also written another paper examining the narrative frameworks surrounding conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. In that study, which has been published on an open-source forum, they track how the conspiracy theories are being layered on to previously circulated conspiracy theories such as those about the perceived danger of vaccines, and, in other cases how the pandemic has given rise to completely new ones, like the idea that 5G cellular networks spread the coronavirus.

"We're using the same pipeline on COVID-19 discussions as we did for Pizzagate," Tangherlini said. "In Pizzagate, the targets were more limited, and the conspiracy theory stabilized rapidly. With COVID-19, there are many competing conspiracy theories, and we are tracing the alignment of multiple, smaller conspiracy theories into larger ones. But the underlying theory is identical for all conspiracy theories."

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