Opinion: QAnon, conspiracy theories are no joke – DW (English)

If, just a few years ago, someone had stated in public that a global elite was kidnapping children and torturing them to harvest their blood to make an elixir of youth, they would have been directed to the nearest psychiatric ward. Yet according to a British poll, some 10% of US citizens saythey believe in at least some elements of this absurd theory known asQAnon.

The conspiracy theory has also been doing the rounds in Germany and, according to the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which sets out to combat far-right ideologies and racism, it has already attracted some 150,000 supporters. This makes the German QAnon community the largest outside of the English-speaking realm.

A Konrad Adenauer Foundation study conducted from October 2019 to February 2020 found that around a third of Germans were open to conspiracy theories. Not counting children under 14, that's 24 million people. Other polls support this figure,and have found many links between QAnon supporters, COVID-19 deniers and right-wing extremists.

How can such blatant nonsense resonate in an enlightened world? After all, this is the 21st century, not the Middle Ages. The answer is: It's just all a mouse click away.Social networks are the perfect breeding ground for fake news and conspiracy theories.

A study conducted in Germany by Correctiv, which describes itself as a nonprofit investigativenewsroom, concluded that Facebook and YouTube were the platforms on which the most false information was spread, with messaging services such as Telegram and WhatsApp not far behind. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyfound that it took six times longer to reach 1,500 people with real news than with fake news.

Social media platforms are in a predicament. On the one hand, they have tended to defend a very broad concept of free speech and tolerate content that amounts to fake news, profanity and insults. It was only in October 2020 that Facebook agreed to take down "content that denies or distorts the Holocaust." Holocaust denial has long been considered a crime in many countries.

On the other hand, these platformsare beginning to admit that the rapid spread of fake news and hatred facilitated by their platforms poses a danger as shown by the storming of the US Capitol last month.

In response to this wake-up call, some platforms are beginning to hold users to account and have blocked the accounts of prominent and less prominent people. Some also now flag fake news with a warning.

But this isn't enough. Facebook and the rest must also be made liable for content such as fake news and hate speech posted on their platforms. The European Commission has tried to address this with its Digital Services Act but faces the difficulty of navigating the thin line between curbing the spread of fake news and censorship.

Martin Muno

Not only that media competence must also be taught more in schools.Young people are more likely to gain their information from social media than traditional news outlets, which need to develop formats better suited to reaching the "YouTube generation."

These are urgent, crucial changes.Conspiracy theories must be resisted because they harbor the potential to destroy democracies, as witnessed not so long ago in Washington.

Last week, in her speech to the German Bundestag on International Holocaust Day, the activist and politician Marina Weisband made it clear: "Being Jewish in Germany means understanding that [the Holocaust] did happen, and that it could happen again. It means that anti-Semitism doesn't start when somebody shoots at a synagogue. That the Shoah did not begin with the gas chambers. It starts with conspiracy narratives."

This article has been adapted from German

Who was really behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York? Was it the US government, meaning the Twin Towers were subject to a controlled explosion? Was it a Jewish conspiracy, with some claiming that Jews did not go to work in the World Trade Center that day? An exhibition titled "Conspiracy theories then and now" at the Dalheim Monastery shows how such beliefs emerge and are maintained.

In the so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," 12 Jewish leaders allegedly layed out their plans to conquer the world in writing. In reality, the 1903 document (pictured here in the exhibition at the Dalheim Monastery) is a work of fiction by Sergej Nilus, an anti-Semitic Russian writer and publisher. The protocols are a central part of modern day anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

The idea of a Jewish conspiracy was also a central part of Nazi ideology. The Nazis spread alleged revelations gleaned from the fake Protocols of the Elders of Zion for their own purposes, reprinting them in their weekly "Der Strmer" (The Attacker) propaganda newspaper.

People who believe in the barcode conspiracy probably have a special pen in their pockets when they approach a checkout counter to neutralize what they believe is negative energy radiating from the barcode. The barcode information supposedly aims to reduce the world population. Some companies even go so far as to print a line through the barcode to keep their customers happy.

Those seeking to explain major political events and revolutions have often invoked grand conspiracies. In the wake of the 1789 French Revolution, secret societies such as the Freemasons and Illuminati were seen as the all-powerful rabble-rousers. Pictured is an Illuminati Minerval class medal currently on show at the "Conspiracy Theory - Past and Present" exhibit that runs through March 22, 2030.

Author: Torsten Landsberg (db)

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Opinion: QAnon, conspiracy theories are no joke - DW (English)