As pundits and politicos spar over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign will factor into the outcome of the 2024 election, one thing is clear: Kennedy’s political following is built on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories. His claims decrying vaccines have roiled scientists and medical experts and stoked anger over whether […]
In the CeMAS report titled “From the Crisis to the Reich”, significant trends within the conspiracy-ideological sovereignist milieu of “Reichsbürger” and other groups in Germany since the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed. The report characterizes conspiracy-ideological sovereignism as a component of the German far right with a longstanding antisemitic tradition. The sovereignist milieu promotes a political […]
On Oct. 4 at 2:20 p.m. EDT, the zombie apocalypse was supposed to begin, not with a bang, but with an unpleasant screeching sound coming from every phone in the United States. At that precise moment, the multiyear plans of shadowy elites would finally become reality, and by using 5G mobile networks and the emergency […]
Within the past three years, Telegram has become the most important platform for conspiracy ideologues and right-wing extremists in German-speaking countries. Using this messaging service, numerous channels reach hundreds of thousands of people every day – and for some messages, the number of views is in the millions. The messaging service was used, for example, […]
“In June 1942, a German officer walks up to a young man and says, “Excuse me, sir, where is the Place de l’Étoile?” The young man points to the left side of his chest. (Jewish history.)” Patrick Modiano, La place de l’étoile, Gallimard, 1968 Meditating on the unfathomable nature of the Holocaust, the historian Alain […]
Conspiracy Watch: Since you wrote your book Voodoo Histories, about conspiracy theories, back in 2009, would you say the phenomenon has grown in size? Why? David Aaronovitch: Obviously, the Internet has played a key role in the creation and spreading of various conspiracy theories. People discovered websites that had the appearance of scholarliness, with footnotes and […]
Late last year, a semi-retired British scientist co-authored a petition to Europe’s medicines regulator. The petitioners made a bold demand: Halt COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Even bolder was their argument for doing so: They speculated, without providing evidence, that the vaccines could cause infertility in women. The document appeared on a German website on Dec.1. […]
