On Sunday night, French President Emmanuel Macron (from La République En Marche! party) was reelected for another five-year mandate with a 17-point lead over his far-right competitor, Marine Le Pen (from the National Rally party). Le Pen conceded in a live televised speech shortly after the results were announced. In a near-simultaneous campaign email, she […]
As with many global crises, the online far-right is attempting to frame Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through their existing worldview. Indeed, far-right conspiracy theorists have reacted to the war by doing what they do best; conspire and theorise. Antisemitism remains a central component of the extreme-right worldview. Conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement are […]
Conspiracy Watch: Since you wrote your book Voodoo Histories, about conspiracy theories, back in 2009, would you say the phenomenon has grown in size? Why? David Aaronovitch: Obviously, the Internet has played a key role in the creation and spreading of various conspiracy theories. People discovered websites that had the appearance of scholarliness, with footnotes and […]
Late last year, a semi-retired British scientist co-authored a petition to Europe’s medicines regulator. The petitioners made a bold demand: Halt COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Even bolder was their argument for doing so: They speculated, without providing evidence, that the vaccines could cause infertility in women. The document appeared on a German website on Dec.1. […]
Research from the 2020 YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project reveals just how widespread belief in some common conspiracy theories is. The survey took place in the summer of 2020 and interviewed more than 22,000 people in 21 countries. [...] Read more
