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16 things I learnt about conspiracy theories – from the experts

Conspiracy theories shape how many people see the world. It's important to understand why.

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Imagining conspiracies
Imagining conspiracies

conspiracy.jpg
conspiracy.jpg

Shutterstock.com/YurZap. All rights reserved.A few months ago, this guy rang me and insisted he had a story I should report on. He came with a large wheelie suitcase to my local cafe, and started describing some rather horrible things he had experienced. Eventually, he arrived at his conclusion: the Masons run GCHQ through the Bilderberg group, with funding from the Rothschilds, and were responsible for 9/11. A woman approached our table to tell me how she had removed her kids from the local school because the government were using radio waves to re-programme them. I told them both I wouldn't be able to write about them. He tweeted angrily at me for the next few days.

He was, though, relatively harmless. That's not true of the nice woman I met at an eco-fair in north London. She was running an anti-vaccination stall. With the kindest of intentions, she was part of a movement whose misinformation is responsible for significant numbers of people suffering from brutally painful, life-altering or fatal diseases.