this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
163 points (96.0% liked)

science

15012 readers
724 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Some just want to promote conflict, cause chaos, or even just get attention.

There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a number of people sharing conspiracies online who don’t believe their own content.

They are opportunists. These people share conspiracy theories to promote conflict, cause chaos, recruit and radicalize potential followers, make money, harass, or even just to get attention.

There are several types of this sort of conspiracy-spreader trying to influence you.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Owners of the US have fake news run propaganda that has no basis in fact.

Generalizing this far is not rational or productive. There are varying degrees of quality in US media with varying problems within. Zooming out this far isn't productive. Might as well go further and say "people lie, therefore nothing can be trusted". Sounds deep, but is just a futile meaningless statement. Most problems with news media stem from distortions of fact, but obviously do have some basis in fact so right off the bat your premise is faulty.

Do you hold these people as accountable

If you're asking whether I hold media accountable for lying or for bad reporting (no, they are the same. If you can tell the difference that's on you), then yes I do.

You're now far off topic. Spreading baseless conspiracy theories constantly and having some of them be sort of adjacent to the truth isn't a vindication. It doesnt mean you were right to say what you said.