https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/11/gen-z-misinformation-politics-news-conspiracy-423913
conspiracy overload
A particularly gruesome example was the viral conspiracy theory that the furniture retailer Wayfair was secretly trafficking children. The baseless narrative spread across TikTok, with users matching names of furniture lines with missing children to construct a theory that the furniture company was selling missing kids.
It was a political reincarnation of the viral “pizzagate” conspiracy theory that led to a shooting at a Washington pizzeria in 2017. And it wasn’t before long that it grew ties to the world of QAnon — the equally baseless right-wing mythology that Trump is secretly fighting against a cabal of deep-state pedophiles. (The FBI has dubbed QAnon a domestic terrorist threat.)
These theories may seem too absurd to believe, but when repeated constantly in the peripheral vision, remnants of the theories can trickle into impressionable observers.
“False narratives pushed by conspiratorial extremists can get laundered across different platforms, and those talking points can be repeated even by folks who have no idea where they came from,” Adams said.
After federal marshals located 39 missing children — some believed to be victims of abuse — over a two-week blitz in Georgia, a number of posts began circling claiming that the children were in fact victims of child sex trafficking associated with various QAnon-generated conspiracies. Links were drawn to Wayfair, and some conspiracy theorists began implicating major news organizations for not thoroughly covering the mission.
“False narratives pushed by conspiratorial extremists can get laundered across different platforms, and those talking points can be repeated even by folks who have no idea where they came from.”
Peter Adams
Even people completely unaffiliated with the world of Wayfair and QAnon began criticizing news organizations for not covering the rescue of child trafficking victims — an example, Adams said, of the trickling down of conspiratorial talking points…………………