QAnon, #TrumpCovidHoax and other conspiracy theories may be part of a larger authority crisis created by the internet.

The story behind QAnon is becoming as weird and winding as the conspiracy theory itself. (It doesn’t have satanists, though.)

Twitter on Sunday took down a tweet containing a false claim about coronavirus death statistics that was made by a supporter of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory -- a post that President Donald Trump had retweeted earlier in the day. The tweet -- which has been replaced with a message saying, "This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules -- from "Mel Q," copied from someone else's Facebook post, claimed that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had "quietly" updated its numbers...

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.

The first family to quit Pastor Clark Frailey’s church during the pandemic did it by text message. It felt to Frailey like a heartbreaking and incomplete way to end a years-long relationship. When a second young couple said they were doubting his leadership a week later, Frailey decided to risk seeing them in person, despite…

Facebook also took down thousands of accounts, pages and groups as part en effort to limit violent rhetoric tied to QAnon, political militias and protest groups.

Political conservatism was associated with heightened susceptibility to believing fake news about COVID-19 in the early stages of the outbreak in the United States, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science. The study provides preliminary evidence that support for President Donald Trump plays a role in viewing COVID-19 as less of a personal threat and less severe in general.

Facebook has deleted a large group dedicated to sharing and discussing QAnon conspiracy theories. QAnon is a wide-ranging, unfounded conspiracy theory that a "deep state" network of powerful government, business and media figures are waging a secret war against Donald Trump. A Facebook spokeswoman said the group was removed for "repeatedly posting content that violated our policies".

The Material Girl is now the Coronavirus Conspiracist. Madonna on Tuesday posted a video with misinformation about COVID-19 and hydroxychloroquine, writing on Instagram that a vaccine for the virus had been developed but was being withheld to “let the rich get richer.”

Responding to a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates plans to use the coronavirus vaccine to implant microchips in people and create a global surveillance state, the billionaire said the theory was “so stupid.” Gates’ remarks came during a call with reporters on Thursday ahead of an announcement that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would pledge another $1.6 billion to the Gavi vaccine alliance, the New York Post reported.

A film featuring a known anti-vaxxer pushing conspiracy theories and false claims about the novel coronavirus, including attacking vaccines, has racked up more than 9 million views on YouTube. Additionally, the video and its reuploads have tallied more than 16 million Facebook engagements. The spread of the film -- called “Plandemic” -- through reuploads on YouTube shows the platform’s continuing issues with enforcing its policies against coronavirus misinformation during this public health crisis.

Facebook says it has removed several groups, accounts and pages linked to QAnon, taking action for the first time against the far-right U.S. conspiracy theory circulated among supporters of President Donald Trump. The social-media giant made the announcement Tuesday as part of its monthly briefing on “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on its platforms. That’s Facebook’s term for fake accounts run with the intent of disrupting politics elections and society.

YouTube has deleted conspiracy theorist David Icke’s account. The video-sharing site said the 68-year-old violated its policies on sharing information about coronavirus.

The CCTV footage from a Dutch business park shows a man in a black cap pouring the contents of a white container at the base of a cellular radio tower. Flames burst out as the man jogs back to his Toyota to flee into the evening.

The news: YouTube has managed to drastically reduce the number of conspiracy theory videos it recommends, but the total is creeping back up again, according to a new study.The study: Researchers trained an algorithm to judge the likelihood that a video on the site contained conspiracy theories by looking at the description, transcript, and comments.

The FBI has named some of America’s wildest and most troubling conspiracy theories as serious national security threats, citing various violent events in recent years as evidence. The internal intelligence bulletin, first reported by Yahoo News, was written by the agency’s Phoenix bureau and is dated May 2019. It names known conspiracy theories which have gained media traction in recent years as sources of domestic terrorism and extremism...

The father of a victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre has won a defamation lawsuit against the authors of a book that claimed the shooting never happened — the latest victory for victims’ relatives who have been taking a more aggressive stance against conspiracy theorists.

Every day in the media we see once-unthinkable science headlines. More than seven hundred cases of measles across 22 states in the U.S., largely due to vaccine deniers. Climate change legislation stalled in the U.S. Senate—due mainly to partisan politicians who routinely confuse climate and weather—even as scientists tell us that we have only until 2030 to cut worldwide carbon emissions by half, then drop them to zero by 2050. And, in one of the most incredible developments of my lifetime, the Flat Earth movement is on the rise.

Amazon and Hulu continue to recommend content that promotes conspiracy theories, despite an industry-wide effort to purge them.

An enduring conspiracy theory that the Nazi war criminal, Rudolf Hess, had been replaced by a double in jail has finally been put to rest. A DNA test carried out by Austrian scientists has shown that the man imprisoned in Berlin's Spandau Prison had indeed been Hitler's deputy. Hess was captured after flying to Scotland in 1941 and sentenced to life in prison at the Nuremberg trials. He was found hanged in the Berlin jail in 1987 at the age of 93.