As France prepares to vote in the snap legislative elections’ runoff, with Marine Le Pen’s extreme right, Putin-admiring movement pushing at the gates of power, conspiracy theories are running amok. A clutch of notorious propagators of narratives spanning pro-Kremlin conspiracies, anti-vax theories, climate change denial, QAnon, and Holocaust negation have already been elected outright in […]
‘Pogrom’, ‘raid’, ‘terrorist attack’: regardless of the name eventually agreed upon, the massacres of civilians perpetrated by Hamas and its allies in Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, will remain a significant event in the history of anti-Jewish violence. As American historian Deborah Lipstadt pointed out, it constitutes “the most lethal assault against Jews since […]
While the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is one of the most influential and reprinted books in the history of 20th century conspiracy theories, its initial release went almost completely unnoticed. Plagiarized by an unknown author or authors from a variety of sources, the fiercely antisemitic document was first published in Russian in an […]
Despite its title serving as an interrogatory rather than a statement, conspiracy theorist Des Griffin’s 1976 book Descent into Slavery? is not actually asking if we’re descending into slavery, but telling us all the way it’s already happened and who is to blame. Born in Northern Ireland in 1934, a biography of Griffin on an […]
Conspiracy theorist literature is full of both real and hypothesized groups of powerful people meeting in various think tanks, committees, councils, and cabals for the purposes of enriching their own power while stripping the power away from those deemed lesser than them. Some of these groups are real, though their imaginary power far outweighs what […]
What’s bigger than a big secret? The Biggest Secret, according to the British conspiracy theorist author and speaker David Icke. The cover of the prolific writer’s book of the same name promises to reveal long-hidden and deeply suppressed knowledge that will do nothing less than “change the world.” Does Icke deliver on his boast? What […]
Angelo John Gage, who changed his name to Lucas Gage in 2022 to evade social network bans, is an American extremist influencer known for advocating white supremacy and neo-Nazism. He also supports the left-wing BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement calling for the destruction of Israel. Most recently, Gage has engaged in violent threats against Jews […]
The Labour candidate for the 29 February Rochdale byelection, Azhar Ali, has “apologised unreservedly to the Jewish community” for comments which he described as “deeply offensive, ignorant and false.” After comments emerged in which he suggested Israel had allowed the 7 October to happen in order to have a pretext to attack Gaza, he said […]
It was May 2020 when dance teacher Willem Engel delivered an apparently scientifically well-founded talk about the COVID-19 pandemic response in the Netherlands. The manifesto was posted on Dutch YouTube channel Café Weltschmerz. Within days, hundreds of thousands had viewed the video. Engel rapidly rose to prominence as the head of a group behind large, […]
Swedish police discovered Janet Ossebaard’s lifeless body on December 22, 2023, in Lund, in southern Sweden. She had been missing for several weeks and her last Telegram letter indicated suicidal thoughts. Despite assertions from her partner Cyntha Koeter and old friends about her struggles with depression and a traumatic childhood, wild rumors quickly circulated. Her […]
