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+17 +1
The Eye of Providence: The symbol with a secret meaning?
How has a seemingly straightforward image – an eye set within a triangle – become a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists? Matthew Wilson looks at the history of an ambiguous symbol.
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+17 +1
QAnon proves internet companies aren't up to the task of defending democracy
QAnon’s success is a byproduct of the continual failures of platform companies to prevent the growth anti-democratic movements
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+14 +1
How QAnon infiltrated the yoga world
It was in March when yoga instructor Jennifer Davis-Flynn noticed her Instagram feed starting to change. She saw fellow yogis expressing doubts about the severity of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, challenging government-mandated lockdowns and mask-wearing regulations, and positing whether natural medicine and meditation could best protect us from the viral threat.
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+22 +1
The return of Fake Melania Trump is a fitting end to this bonkers election
Rumours of a bogus FLOTUS are crazy talk, writes Vinay Menon, but wild theories are to be expected when no one can believe what the Trump camp says.
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+4 +1
QAnon is supposed to be all about protecting kids. Its primary enabler appears to have hosted child porn domains.
One dark irony of QAnon has always been that the conspiracy theory, which holds that President Trump is waging a war on a cabal of elite liberal pedophiles, rose to prominence on 8chan, an imageboard where users swapped child pornography.
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+28 +1
I Spoke to a Scholar of Conspiracy Theories and I’m Scared for Us
The big lesson of 2020 is that everything keeps getting more dishonest.
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+15 +1
He went down the QAnon rabbit hole for two years. Here's how he got out
One day in June 2019, Jitarth Jadeja went outside to smoke a cigarette. For two years he'd been in the virtual cult of QAnon. But now he'd watched a YouTube video that picked apart the last element of the theory he believed in. Standing there smoking, he would say later, he felt "shattered." He had gone down the QAnon rabbit hole; now, having emerged from it, he had no idea what to do next.
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+17 +1
TikTok rival Triller announces ban on QAnon conspiracy theory content
Short-form video app Triller will now ban all content related to the QAnon conspiracy theory, a representative for the platform told Insider on Tuesday evening. Triller CEO Mike Lu told Insider in a statement that the platform came to the decision because of the FBI's reference to QAnon as a possible domestic terrorism threat.
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+16 +1
Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Addictive Right Now
QAnon, #TrumpCovidHoax and other conspiracy theories may be part of a larger authority crisis created by the internet.
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+4 +1
Was the Identity of Q Really Just Revealed? Here’s Everything We Know.
The story behind QAnon is becoming as weird and winding as the conspiracy theory itself. (It doesn’t have satanists, though.)
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+19 +1
The Most Dangerous Cult of Our Times: QAnon's Inexorable Spread Beyond the U.S.
The bizarre, pro-Trump cult known as QAnon has been gaining followers in the United States for months. Now, the conspiracy theory has begun spreading to Germany. It's followers believe that the coronavirus is a weapon of the elite in their quest to enslave the world.
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+9 +1
QAnon conspiracists believe in a vast pedophile ring. The truth is sadder
Rather than confront the reality of child abuse, Trump fans have dreamed up an elaborate fiction to justify their support for a morally indefensible president. In recent weeks the groups have moved offline and into the real world, using their Facebook pages to organize in-person rallies outside tourist attractions like the Big Red Wagon in Spokane, Washington, and the state capitol building in Salem, Oregon. The believers hold signs that say things like “#SavetheChildren” and “Stop Child Trafficking.” They’re often accompanied by their children, wearing T-shirts and onesies that read “I am not for sale.”
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+10 +1
Pastors Are Losing Church Members To QAnon, Swapping One Myth for Another
The QAnon conspiracy theory has emerged as a powerful cultish force within the Republican Party, and while there’s no polling that shows it, many QAnon followers are people who regularly attend church. In a really eye-opening piece by Abby Ohlheiser in the MIT Technology Review, she speaks with pastors who have essentially lost members who went down that rabbit hole.
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+13 +1
Equation shows that large-scale conspiracies would quickly reveal themselves
If you're thinking of creating a massive conspiracy, you may be better scaling back your plans, according to an Oxford University researcher. While we can all keep a secret, a study by Dr David Robert Grimes suggests that large groups of people sharing in a conspiracy will very quickly give themselves away. The study is published online by journal PLOS ONE.
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+19 +1
Millions of Americans Believe Trump Is Fighting Literal Demons
Believers in spiritual warfare are primed to adopt even more dangerous conspiracy theories.
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+19 +1
Catholic archbishop tells Trump protests, virus are a deep state plot
President Trump tweeted a letter written to him from Carlo Maria Viganò, a Catholic archbishop, who suggests the coronavirus pandemic and the George Floyd protests are part of a 'deep state' plot to hurt the president's re-election. In the long-winded letter, Viganò describes the current climate as a battle against good and evil and says Trump's participation in the anti-abortion 'March for Life' 'confirm[s] which side you wish to fight on.'
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+4 +1
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: UK man gets 3 years for torching 4G phone mast over 5G fears
A Merseyside man has been sentenced to three years in jail by a beak in Liverpool Crown Court after torching a Vodafone-owned phone mast. Michael Whitty, a 47-year-old from Knowsley, set fire to the base station of the mast on April 5 of this year, after becoming convinced that 5G was directly linked to the COVID-19 epidemic, the court heard.
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+12 +1
‘Extreme’ conspiracy killing US ‘faithful’
US evangelical Christians led the charge against isolation measures to combat COVID-19. Now they’re proclaiming any vaccine to be “the mark of the Beast”. The US “is experiencing the consequential wrath of God,” Reverend Ralph Drollinger wrote in a Capitol Ministries Bible study. He was preaching to White House administrators and staff, blaming the pandemic on those with “a proclivity toward lesbianism and homosexuality” as well as environmentalists and people with “depraved minds”.
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+12 +1
Apple removes conspiracy sites & other fake news from 'Siri Suggested Websites' in Safari
A new report from BuzzFeed News highlights how the “Siri Suggested Websites” feature in Safari can surface “debunked conspiracies, shock videos, and false information.” Essentially, when users would type things such as “QAnon” or “Pizzagate” into the Safari search bar, the browser would suggest related “low-quality information.” The Siri Suggested Websites feature in Safari surfaces content from websites such as YouTube and Wikipedia based on the search term being typed into the search bar.
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+26 +1
Fox News Sued by Parents of Slain DNC Staffer Seth Rich
The parents of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich sued Fox News on Tuesday, accusing the network of fabricating a conspiracy involving their son and Wikileaks in order to boost ratings. Joel and Mary Rich filed suit in federal court in New York, seeking unspecified damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress and other claims.
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