Opinion | How to Talk to Friends and Family Who Share Conspiracy Theories - The New Yor... - 1 views
www.nytimes.com/...onspiracy-theories-family.html
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shared by clairemann on 27 Oct 20
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Online, somebody they know and love has stumbled into the treacherous world of online conspiracy theories and, in some cases, might not even know it.
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How do you talk to people you care about who might be on the precipice of or headed down the conspiratorial rabbit hole?
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Conspiracy theories (like Pizzagate and now QAnon, anti-vaccine claims, disinformation around the coronavirus suggesting the virus was engineered in a laboratory) are a chronic condition that will long outlive the 2020 election.
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I’d non-defensively ask them, ‘Do you know how Google works?’ ‘What do you think my news feed looks like? Do you know why yours looks that way?’”
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is to acknowledge that some conspiracies do exist — Watergate, the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals, the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s network of underage sexual abuse.
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And if people better understood the mechanisms and the economics, maybe then you can talk about the content.”
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Witnesses come forward, then victims. And journalists circle like sharks to get the story. I try to get them to think about concrete things and logistical details, including the bureaucracy that’s required to maintain these vast alleged plots.”
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“Sometimes it’s about turning the ‘do your research’ paradigm back on them,” he said. “I never appeal to authorities like the government or mainstream media, but I subtly imply that what they’re saying doesn’t match the historical record, which works better than outright dismissing them.”
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Unfortunately, social platforms are often the worst forum for talking about these thorny issues. In many cases, a face-to-face conversation is a better place to voice your concerns.
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They can also allow participants to pick up on subtle facial and body language expressions — or tone of voice — that may dissolve tensions.
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“There it is. Biden’s wearing a wire.” It’s actually just a crease in his shirt. And a popular meme among teens was the claim that Wayfair is shipping children in industrial-grade cabinets.
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The main gist of QAnon is that elite satanic pedophiles are everywhere and they’re coming to get your kids. More specifically, pedophiles are everywhere among liberals, celebrities, and the media.
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“Q is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” There are now 87 QAnon supporters who have run for Congress, and the first will be elected this November. “I think it’s something worth listening to and paying attention to.” And Trump refuses to push back against QAnon because QAnon loves Trump.
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One of the major reasons QAnon is on the rise right now is because when the world is scary and uncertain, we are drawn to magical thinking.