Midway through last week’s Republican presidential-primary debate, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy started running through conspiracy theories like a frustrated child mashing buttons on Street Fighter, alleging that the Capitol riot was an “inside job” and that the so-called “Great Replacement” theory “is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic […]
In an attack caught on video, a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) used a fire extinguisher to put out the Hanukkah candles on a menorah positioned in a public area of the building, filling the room with mist and covering bystanders with foam. Grzegorz Braun, an MP for the far-right alliance Konfederacja, then stated […]
On 16 November 2023, it was reported that Osama Bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ had gone viral on TikTok. In reaction to these reports, TikTok intervened and deleted the clips concerning Bin Laden. However, this did not apply to thousands of other videos and postings that also spread antisemitism, disinformation and conspiracy myths about 7 […]
The account of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was restored on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday after owner Elon Musk conducted a poll among followers on Saturday and pronounced: “The People have spoken and so it shall be.” “This will be bad for X financially, but principles matter more than money,” he added. It […]
"Did you ever see a better #Pallywood video than this?!" says a November 30, 2023 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The video shows three men arranging themselves in a row on the ground, their eyes closed as though they were dead. Similar posts spread across X — many invoking the term "Pallywood," a […]
One fifth of Americans ages 18-29 believe the Holocaust was a myth, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov. While the question only surveyed a small sample of about 200 people, it lends credence to concerns about rising antisemitism, especially among young people in the U.S. Another 30 percent of young people said they […]
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 […]
