A Golden Age: Conspiracy Theories’ Relationship with Misinformation Outlets, News Media, and the Wider Internet
Published in The 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing (CSCW 2023), 2023
Recommended citation: Hanley, Hans W. A., Deepak Kumar, and Zakir Durumeric. "A Golden Age: Conspiracy Theories’ Relationship with Misinformation Outlets, News Media, and the Wider Internet." The 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing 2023. https://www.hanshanley.com/files/A_Golden_Age.pdf
Do we live in a “Golden Age of Conspiracy Theories?” In the last few decades, conspiracy theories have proliferated on the Internet with some having dangerous real-world consequences. A large contingent of those who participated in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol believed fervently in the QAnon conspiracy theory. In this work, we study the relationships amongst five prominent conspiracy theories (QAnon, COVID, UFO/Aliens, 9-11, and Flat-Earth) and each of their respective relationships to the news media, both mainstream and fringe. Identifying and publishing a set of 755 different conspiracy theory websites dedicated to our five conspiracy theories, we find that each set often hyperlinks to the same external domains, with COVID and QAnon conspiracy theory websites largest amount of shared connections. Examining the role of news media, we further find that not only do outlets known for spreading misinformation hyperlink to our set of conspiracy theory websites more often than mainstream websites but this hyperlinking has increased dramatically between 2018 and 2021, with the advent of QAnon and the start of COVID-19 pandemic. Using partial Granger-causality, we uncover several positive correlative relationships between the hyperlinks from misinformation websites and the popularity of conspiracy theory websites, suggesting the prominent role that misinformation news outlets play in popularizing many conspiracy theories.