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Due to the Internet, conspiracy theories are on the rise and playing an increasingly significant role in global politics. Now new research from The Australian National University (ANU) has analysed digital data to reveal exactly who is propagating them and why.
Lead researcher Dr Colin Klein of the ANU School of Philosophy said that conspiracies such as Pizzagate (which falsely claimed high-ranking Democratic Party officials were running a child-sex ring out of a pizza shop) and the anti-vaccination movement are becoming a bigger issue.
Dr Klein and his team used a huge, publicly available dataset of every comment made on the conspiracy section of the world's largest discussion website Reddit from 2007 to mid-2015 to work out exactly who was taking part in spreading these conspiracies and why. He was surprised by the results.
The analysis showed that most conspiracies built traction when a range of different people and groups could connect it to their own preconceived beliefs or agendas.
http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/anu-study-reveals-who-is-spreading-online-conspiracies
[Also Covered By]: Phys.org
[Paper]: Topic Modeling Reveals Distinct Interests within an Online Conspiracy Forum
Does Reddit seem like a good choice for this study?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 03 2018, @11:10PM (5 children)
Wouldn't it be better to do a study on why the feck politicians are such scum?
This wouldn't be as believed if it wasn't believable.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @04:17AM (3 children)
The democrats of course want to claim that it is false. Since most media and all the "fact checker" web sites are hard-core leftist, of course they all will agree that the claim is false. Is it? Based on what evidence?
Granted, the burden of proof is on the accuser, but there is some really damning circumstantial evidence in Podesta's emails. He used pedophile jargon. He is unable/unwilling to explain why he rents specific numbers of slices of pizza by the hour. That is not how any ordinary person enjoys pizza. In the jargon, the number of slices is a child's age.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @05:15AM (2 children)
If you think most media is "hard-code leftist" you must be a full blown nazi yourself.
Also you're obviously a pedo too yourself, you just used the jargon...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @09:34AM (1 child)
Why are all the pedos full blowing Nazis, too? And you mean there are people stupid enough to still credit the Ping-Pong-Ding-Dong Cosmo-Galactic Pizza thing? Of course, you would have to be at least that stupid to credit it in the first place. (Oh, and "credit" here is from the Latin, "credo", from where English gets "creed" and "credence", and has nothing to do with charge cards. Thought you might need that clarified, since, well, what with all the "jargon" you refer to, you must not be too bright or even very well educated. Baptist, I presume?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04 2018, @09:40AM
Found the spreader! Chances are, this fine article was just a ruse to flush him out. They got your number now, conspiracy-theory spreader!
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday April 04 2018, @05:28PM
It wouldn't be believable if there weren't so many stupid people to believe it.