It’s also making the mistake of treating “conspiracy theorists” as a monolith, which they’re not.
It pretty much was. The qanon nonsense functioned as an umbrella conspiracy theory, which pretty much coopted all other conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.
If you can see what a cult/psyop can do to influence people’s beliefs (Q), certainly you can then see that a lot of conspiracy spaces are manipulated by bots and other people in bad faith doing the same thing.
Not every conspiracy theorist forms beliefs - they could merely be hypothesizing/speculating. Not every conspiracy theorist believes in everything posted in these spaces, and not every conspiracy theorist follows Q and other cults like it.
It pretty much was. The qanon nonsense functioned as an umbrella conspiracy theory, which pretty much coopted all other conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists.
You think everyone who has a crazy theory is all part of one big world wide organization?
Do they hold meetings?
My conspiracy theory is the conspiracy theorists international organisation’s annual meeting
If you can see what a cult/psyop can do to influence people’s beliefs (Q), certainly you can then see that a lot of conspiracy spaces are manipulated by bots and other people in bad faith doing the same thing.
Not every conspiracy theorist forms beliefs - they could merely be hypothesizing/speculating. Not every conspiracy theorist believes in everything posted in these spaces, and not every conspiracy theorist follows Q and other cults like it.