When notorious pedophile and wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein died in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking minors, he left conspiracy theorists with a tangled web of lurid mysteries that would keep them busy for years to come. Suspicions that Epstein hadn’t really hanged himself soon gave way to […]
Briahna Joy Gray, a popular progressive YouTuber and former spokeswoman for Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, is still casting doubt on the verified allegations of rape from Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, insisting that “Zionists” are employing a “coordinated messaging push” to exaggerate the extent of the terrorist group’s sexual crimes. [...] Read more
In the CeMAS report titled “From the Crisis to the Reich”, significant trends within the conspiracy-ideological sovereignist milieu of “Reichsbürger” and other groups in Germany since the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed. The report characterizes conspiracy-ideological sovereignism as a component of the German far right with a longstanding antisemitic tradition. The sovereignist milieu promotes a political […]
Scientists have learned a lot about why people believe in conspiracy theories and how they harm society over the past couple of decades. Yet little is known about how the groups targeted by conspiracy theories feel and behave. Our new research found that conspiracy theories can make people from their target communities want to help […]
A severe storm system moved through the Black Sea this week, impacting occupied Crimea and parts of Ukraine and Russia, leaving millions without heat and power. Amid the storm, pro-Kremlin sources re-circulated an old conspiracy theory suggesting US-based entities were complicit in the storm’s creation. The conspiracy theory accuses the United States of having a technological program that can control the […]
Max Blumenthal, the editor of The Grayzone website, wrote a piece on October 27 that can only be described as a master class in manipulation. His article provided the basis for the now widespread conspiracy theory denying that Hamas murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians. No one who knows Blumenthal or The Grayzone was surprised by […]
Gigi Hadid has come under fire for resharing a video that says Israel has harvested the organs of dead Palestinians. Taking to Instagram, the model reshared the video by user Umme Murtaza (umme_murtazaa). In the clip, Murtaza told followers to "watch this disturbing video, where health officials admitted that Israeli authorities had harvested the organs […]
Climate conspiracy theories are flourishing with lifestyle influencers joining in the misinformation war and scientists hounded on social media, researchers say, as pressure rises on leaders at the COP28 summit. "Mis- and disinformation about the climate emergency are delaying urgently needed action to ensure a liveable future for the planet," the United Nations said in […]
Nigeria announced in late October its plan to introduce the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine into its routine immunisation programme. On October 25, 2023, Abuja-based radio host Ahmed Isah told listeners of his daily "Brekete Family Show" that the government’s cervical cancer vaccination drive may be harmful to young women who are the targets of the […]
Fifty years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 59 percent of Americans still believe it was the work of a conspiracy. I was once among them. Back in the early 1970s, as a high school senior and college freshman, I read Mark Lane’s Rush to Judgment, Richard Popkin’s The Second Oswald, Penn Jones’ Forgive My Grief, and other […]
