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Conspiracy theory

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
People in the US commonly associate this image with a conspiracy theory involving the Illiuminati or the Freemasons.
Front page of Edouard Drumont's La Libre Parole (1893) with a caricature of a Jew grabbing the globe, implying their alleged desire to control the world. Caption: "Their Homeland".
The International Jew: The World's Problem published in Henry Ford's newspaper The Dearborn Independent (1920),[1] an offshoot of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion giving rise to the ZOG conspiracy theory.
A propaganda poster made by the Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI) implying that Black and Native Americans are the "real" descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The BHI allege that the said peoples have been "wrongfully" classified by White imperialists into different ethnic groups across the Western hemisphere.

A conspiracy theory is a story that says that a group of people (called "conspirators") have agreed ("conspired") to engage in illegal or malicious actions and hide them from the public.

Overview

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Conspiracy theories usually have little or no credible evidence. Distorted history based on conspiracy theories is sometimes called pseudohistory (pseudo- : from Greek ψευδής, "false").[2][3] People who promote pseudohistory are called historical revisionists,[2][4] or simply revisionists.[2][4] Some claim that historical events like the Holocaust or the Moon landing were faked by "conspirators".[2]

Examples

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There are many conspiracy theories about historical events, including:

There are also conspiracy theories about:

Some of these theories - like the idea that the Earth is flat - are irrational because there is so much evidence proving that they are wrong.[2]

Proliferation

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Digital age

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Conspiracy emerged as a cultural phenomenon in the United States of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.[2][19] In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of conspiracy theories discussed on the Internet. Theories that once had few followers can become well-known through the mass media.

Conspiracy theorists get paid by websites according to how many viewers they attract. Websites that seem free to the user are paid for by adverts, usually quite harmless, though they may be annoying. The people who post individual articles get paid once the number of viewers exceeds a certain qualifying number.[source?]

Critique

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David Grimes has calculated that it takes at least three years to expose a conspiracy theory on the internet,[20] depending on the number of people involved.[20] Many conspiracy theories are exposed in three to four years.[2][20]

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References

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  1. ↑ Sachar, Howard Morley (1993). A History of the Jews in America. Vintage Books. p. 311. ISBN 0679745300.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 *Clarke, Steve (2006). "Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracy Theorizing". Conspiracy Theories (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781315259574. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
  3. ↑ "The New Testament Greek word: ψευδω". Abarim Publications. December 3, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2025.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1
  5. ↑ *Evans, Richard J (2002). Telling lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, history and the David Irving trial. Verso. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
  6. ↑ *"Statement on Holocaust Denial Conference Sponsored by Iranian Regime". George W. Bush White House Archives. December 12, 2006. Retrieved December 23, 2024.
  7. ↑ *Knight, Peter (2008). "Outrageous Conspiracy Theories: Popular and Official Responses to 9/11 in Germany and the United States". New German Critique (103). Duke University Press: 165–193. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
  8. ↑ *Monbiot, George (June 13, 2011). "Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers". The Guardian. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  9. ↑ *"Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge". The New York Times. 1988. Retrieved December 18, 2024.
  10. ↑ *Pinsker, Sanford (1992). "America's conspiratorial imagination". The Virginia Quarterly Review. 68 (4). University of Virginia: 605–625. JSTOR 26437308. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
  11. ↑ "Congresswoman Luna and the JFK Files: How Antisemitic Conspiracy Theorists Hijack History to Spread Hate". Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM). February 19, 2025. Retrieved February 26, 2025.
  12. ↑ *Birchall, Clare (2001). "Conspiracy Theories and Academic Discourses: The necessary possibility of popular (over)interpretation". Continuum. 15 (1). Brighton and Hove, England: 67–76. doi:10.1080/713657760. Retrieved December 15, 2024. Published online: 01 Jul 2010
  13. ↑ * "How the Myth of the "Irish slaves" Became a Favorite Meme of Racists Online". Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). April 19, 2016. Retrieved December 17, 2024.
  14. ↑ * "Myth of Irish 'slavery' promoted by white supremacists ahead of St. Patrick's Day". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). March 16, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2024. Last Updated: March 17, 2017
  15. ↑ * Bakalaki, Alexandra (May 12, 2016). "Chemtrails, Crisis, and Loss in an Interconnected World". Visual Anthropology Review. 32 (1): 12–23. doi:10.1111/var.12089. Retrieved December 14, 2024. Special Issue:Uncertain Visions: Crisis, Ambiguity, and Visual Culture in Greece
  16. ↑ * Robertson, David George (November 25, 2014). "Metaphysical conspiracism: UFOs as discursive object between popular millennial and conspiracist fields". University of Edinburgh Research Archive. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
  17. ↑ * Renard, Jean-Bruno (2005). "Negatory Rumors: From the Denial of Reality to Conspiracy Theory". Rumor Mills (1 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781315128795. Retrieved December 14, 2024.
  18. ↑ * Boym, Svetlana (Spring 1999). "Conspiracy theories and literary ethics: Umberto Eco, Danilo Kis and The Protocols of Zion". Comparative Literature. 51 (2): 97–122. doi:10.2307/1771244. JSTOR 1771244.
  19. ↑
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2
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