Why has there been an increase of conspiracy theories/tinfoil hats online?

[Deathknightish]

Sure, they've always existed but it really feels like they are at a peak level now.

New world order, the cabal, Illuminati, Hollywood being a ring of paedophiles trafficking kidnapped children, Bill Gates wanting to kill billions through vaccines, 5G tech being dangerous, Michelle Obama is a man and, of course, vaccines are the devil.

Why is there so much more of it now?

[Katie N]

Easier to spread with social media compared to before when they were isolated clusters.

Lack of penalties for spreading it.

Here you can be fined if you spread conspiracy theories about the virus.

[Deathknightish]

Easier to spread with social media compared to before when they were isolated clusters.

Lack of penalties for spreading it.

Here you can be fined if you spread conspiracy theories about the virus.

Sure, but even for the past 10 years it feels like it's at a peak. Social media existed then, too.

[Kumorii]

People gets pushed into their perspective groups more and more across the western societies. The increase of bigotry and pure hatred towards opposing views make people shrivel back into their safe group where they get listened to. Bias is strong if there is no one to challenge the view, which keeps growing as long as it keeps happening.

[ErrandRunner]

Maybe because more people are waking up and becoming privy to dark stuff that was for many years kept swept under the rug.

[CapnAwew]

Easier to spread with social media compared to before when they were isolated clusters.

Lack of penalties for spreading it.

Here you can be fined if you spread conspiracy theories about the virus.

Well...I'd rather be free and die early than live to 100 in an oppressive state, and that means other people get to express that freedom no matter how idiotic. But also more concerning in the social media age is people becoming sheep and letting people decide for them. They may follow the conspiracy theory, but do they really believe it and know what it's about? Probably not, but X twitter/media guy says so, so I will believe it to!

[shadowmouse]

Greed. Greed for wealth and greed for power.

People need information for decision making. They need information to track their place in the world, much as a sea captain needs information to track where the ship is.

There are those that will fill that need, and when that happens others will see the potential for money and influence. That's where money and influence inject themselves into the process and then start to bend it to work better for profit and control. Others look towards that and want a slice. And so it goes.

Print media faced pressure for clicks, but clicks were rewarded. As they went increasingly online, click bait became the yellow journalism of our day.

Last night I just finished rewatching the Lone Gunmen, and you can see the roots of the discussion of the growth of alternate media as mistrust of "mainstream media" grew. Today, it is hard not to facepalm wondering why the hell these amazing hackers didn't put their info on the Internet. Hold that picture in your mind, and remember Morris Fletcher manipulating him. The groups that saw themselves in the same light as the Lone Gunmen of the show did move to the Internet, and with them the people who acted like Morris Fletcher. OK, that's a pretty cheesy oversimplification, but it is an image that we can work with.

We are at a point that people need some information, they find themselves wanting more (hey, look at that click on a sidebar), and the people meeting that need are media empires that are tightly controlled from the top, Lone Gunmen types (and their less savory counterparts), and Morris Fletcher types. People are trying to find ways through the mess, but those ways are subject to the same forces, and at the same time there are others happy to turn it into a game of whack a mole. Much like a carnival game it is a rigged game, the average guy doesn't have the money and resources to win it, and even Jeff Bezos ends up getting his phone hacked.

[Soulwind]

The current generations have grown up with access to the Internet, which has given us a lot more information about things previous generations weren't even aware of. Which means people finding out there were very real conspiracies going on at every moment in history.

That same Internet provides an easy way to communicate and find people who think like you. Which means that, if you suspect something may or may not be true, there will be someone out there who will agree with you, no matter how crazy or biased your hypothesis is.

And then there are governments, companies and other organizations with different interests using their resources to spread (mis)information and create or destroy conspiracies as they need.

Which means there are real conspiracies spreading fake conspiracies. Fake people spreading real information. And both organized and disorganized movements fighting for and against every statement. All in the same cooking pot of websites.

This also results in a lot of people not caring anymore. When lies are constantly mixed, layered and intertwined with the truth, everything is susceptible to be fake, and the mindgames get tiresome after a while. Information becomes background noise, and the truth about the world is no longer a priority in someone's life.

[Dangg]

Hollywood being a ring of paedophiles trafficking kidnapped children

The "elite" trafficking children and raping women? What a crazy conspiracy theory that is.

[s_bushido]

Sure, but even for the past 10 years it feels like it's at a peak. Social media existed then, too.

Because there are people who can go out and get legally drunk now who hadn't even hit puberty yet 10 years ago. An entire generation has grown up with the internet and social media being ubiquitous in their lives. Obviously that's going to have an impact.

[Deathknightish]

The "elite" trafficking children and raping women? What a crazy conspiracy theory that is.

I don't doubt that there are one or two paedophiles in Hollywood and the elite, but the conspiracy is that it's filled with them. That doesn't make sense considering how few people in the rest of the world are paedophiles.

[Draco-Onis]

The internet makes it easier for the crazies to get together not to mention the nut jobs that are being elected into office spreading it as well. It is well known that propaganda and conspiracy theories are great tools for controlling narratives.

[Mayhem]

The conspiracy sites can advocate, get revenue through traffic and run adds themselves.

It also helps that they don't have to research their shit, so they have not too much overhead.

[xenogear3]

I agree.

This is why I only listen to Trump, Putin, Chairman Xi and Hitler.

[Ihavewaffles]

Sure, they've always existed but it really feels like they are at a peak level now.

New world order, the cabal, Illuminati, Hollywood being a ring of paedophiles trafficking kidnapped children, Bill Gates wanting to kill billions through vaccines, 5G tech being dangerous, Michelle Obama is a man and, of course, vaccines are the devil.

Why is there so much more of it now?

When u started with Russia conspiracies behind everything, u opened the floodgates, msm went all in.

[zealo]

There's always been complete nut cases around, it's just that the internet now allows the odd loner to congregate together online with other nut cases they otherwise wouldn't be in contact with.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think it is because people pick a side. Then they look for things to either justify picking that side or ways to villain up the other side. Because they picked first before seeking facts they become ever more desperate to justify the decision. Someone out there will make it look like the right one eventually.

Not to mention speculation is always interesting. It is good thought. We all do it. But some people run with it as fact. Those people are honestly the problem.

[Mayhem]

I think it is because people pick a side. Then they look for things to either justify picking that side or ways to villain up the other side. Because they picked first before seeking facts they become ever more desperate to justify the decision. Someone out there will make it look like the right one eventually.

Not to mention speculation is always interesting. It is good thought. We all do it. But some people run with it as fact. Those people are honestly the problem.

Yeah, it's called the "god damn it, I can't be this stupid"-effect.

[Felya]

*cracks knuckles*

Here is what I just posted in different thread:

It’s like, I used to get a lot of the quartering videos, because I watch MTG content. Had to do the OP thing, because his association with alt right, was steering my recommendations away from MTG and replacing it with alt right. I had 0 interest in it and I guess I didn’t pick up on the themes, in his complaints about Wizard of the Coast being deep state conspiracy. I enjoyed watching him whine in context of MTG, but after he had that fight, YouTube started changing my recommendations every time I watched. It’s the only channel I did the OP thing to and it still popped up a couple of times... but, not anymore.

Steve Bannon’s book:

Steve Bannon learned to harness troll army from 'World of Warcraft'
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...aft/489713001/

Even though the business plan was a flop, Bannon became intrigued by the game's online community dynamics. In describing gamers, Bannon said, "These guys, these rootless white males, had monster power. ... It was the pre-reddit. It's the same guys on (one of a trio of online message boards owned by IGE) Thottbot who were [later] on reddit" and other online message boards where the alt-right flourished, Bannon said.

Green postulates that Bannon's time at IGE was "one that introduced him to a hidden world, burrowed deep into his psyche, and provided a kind of conceptual framework that he would later draw on to build up the audience for Breitbart News, and then to help marshal the online armies of trolls and activists that overran national politicians and helped give rise to Donald Trump," Green writes.

Basically, politicians figured out how to fill your social media content, with stuff they want you to see, through things like WoW videos. You go watch or interact with a WoW content creator, get similar recommendations on both their WoW and political content.

To explain the effect... oh and clicking this, will fuck up your recommendations:


The effect of social media recommendations, is what the video describes as pulling you forward... which isn’t just political, but all conspiracy theories. You touch a thread, then have a feed to keep pulling it.

[unbound]

Sure, they've always existed but it really feels like they are at a peak level now.

New world order, the cabal, Illuminati, Hollywood being a ring of paedophiles trafficking kidnapped children, Bill Gates wanting to kill billions through vaccines, 5G tech being dangerous, Michelle Obama is a man and, of course, vaccines are the devil.

Why is there so much more of it now?

As more and more get online, we get to see more of the stupid. Most millenials were raised with computers around, and now pretty much all of Gen Z were raised with online being the norm.

As such, you have a much larger variety of 2 generations now online, and, with that mix, you get to see more stupid than ever. Stupid tends to cluster around whatever half-baked conspiracy resonates with them, and it is easier than ever to find stupid conspiracy theories.

Furthermore, the current generation of "AI" (i.e. machine learning scripts which mostly just use metatags) has the result of pushing popular conspiracy on people. So, when I watched a video about how the pyramids were likely created, youtube suggestions immediately pointed me to conspiracy BS that aliens made the pyramids because the "AI" simply responds with other pyramid videos...and the popular ones are not historically accurate pyramid videos, but the conspiracy nonsense. And this becomes a feedback loop because of how lazily the "AI" was programmed.

And, as stated by Dunning-Kruger, stupid people think they are smarter than they actually are and don't actually have good critical thinking skills (but they think they do)...so they get sucked into the nonsense. Keep in mind that you can be incredibly skilled or intelligent in one area (e.g. auto mechanics) and be an absolute moron in other areas.