Conspiracy Theories and Fake News

The rise in conspiracy theories and fake news through internet technologies has been a matter of growing concern. Efforts to identify and debunk sources of such misinformation through web channels such as FactCheck.org etc have had limited success. In the United States, the recent case where members of the group called QAnon sought to infiltrate feeds of organizations against child trafficking has furthermore brought attention to the ways in which issues of genuine importance like safety of children can be manipulated by different groups for their own interests. This week’s prompt invites you to focus on the prevalence of conspiracy theories and their potential to harm issues related to human rights and democracy.  You are encouraged to identify such instances in different parts of the world and analyze them. You can draw from your own experiences and share your personal strategies in guarding against such news.  Here is the link to the news referenced in the prompt: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/technology/qanon-save-the-children-trafficking.html