2
Far-right conspiracist and InfoWars host Alex Jones has also lost numerous defamation suits from parents of Sandy Hook victims in recent years, after he falsely claimed their children were not killed in the shooting and that crisis actors were used.
Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab, told Insider he's also seen false flag accusations circulating following the shootings this month, including one trying to connect the shootings with the upcoming US midterms "as a way to make Republicans look bad."
False flag theories serve multiple purposes for believers, Holt said. They can create "cognitive distance" between the tragedy and the adherent's own ideologies, and they can be used to validate pre-existing conspiracy theories that people may already believe.
Many other far-right conspiracy theories, including QAnon, revolve around the idea that a shadowy group of global elites is pulling the strings behind the scenes or orchestrating events. Claims of false flag attacks easily fit into those narratives, giving conspiracists an easy framework for convincing followers that new shootings or attacks are part of those broader conspiracies.
Holt said one shift with the spread of baseless claims like the false flag conspiracy theories nowadays is how they're disseminated and manufactured.
"Not so long ago, people were turning to radio hosts or specific bloggers to get that kind of material," Holt said. "In the modern internet, anyone can post anything and take their shot at trying to go viral, or they can sort of crowdsource the theory."
Online conspiracy theory communities now have an immediate reflex to push out accusations into the broader discourse as they expand on each other's claims and reinforce their beliefs, Holt said.
"You can kind of watch these things get built in real-time in these communities as people chat back and forth," Holt said. "There's a communal aspect that bonds people who believe in theories like this."
pt 1>>17167972