<ul class="summary-list"><li>The phenomenon of anti-vaxx ideas dividing family and friends is - like the coronavirus pandemic - a global one.</li><li>In 2019, the<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019"> (WHO)</a> named vaccine <a href="https://www.insider.com/why-parents-and-grandparents-across-the-us-are-getting-vaccinated-2021-1">hesitancy</a> one of the top 10 threats to global <keyword id="6354750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="health">health</keyword>. </li><li>The endpoint of the new anti-vaxx narrative is to misappropriate the memory of Hitler's Nazi genocide.</li></ul>Paul, 37, a construction worker from Glasgow, Scotland, fell out with his family on Christmas Day over their anti-vaxx opinions.Paul, who asked Insider not to publish his surname, said: "With the Christmas lockdown exemption in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-and-brexit-pushed-scotland-towards-independence-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Scotland</a>, I was really excited to see my family again after what had been a very difficult year. We began discussing when we thought it would all be over and back to normal and I mentioned that I couldn't wait for the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oxford-scientists-test-mixing-astrazeneca-pfizer-coronavirus-vaccines-2021-2?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">COVID-19 vaccine</a> to become available to me."I began thinking about which I would choose out loud when my sister-in-law loudly proclaimed she wouldn't be having any of them. When I calmly asked her why, she angrily said that she wouldn't put something with so much mercury in her body," Paul continued. "When I tried to explain the benefits of vaccines to her, she just got even more frustrated and basically put a damper on the whole day. I haven't spoken to her or my brother since, even though my wife and I have spent every <a href="https://www.insider.com/vanilla-ice-trump-mar-a-lago-new-years-eve-party-2021-1">New Year's</a> Day with them for the last ten years."Paul's story of anti-vaxx ideas driving a wedge between family and friends is - like the coronavirus pandemic - a global one.Azeza, a 22-year-old law student from Cape Town, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/south-africa-coronavirus-variant-more-contagious-us-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">South Africa,</a> who did not want to disclose her last name, told Insider that she lost two good friends in one heated debate.She said: "The first [argument] was around November, and we were having a chat about COVID and vaccines. That's when they started saying they won't get one and that the vaccine was a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-pfizer-moderna-doesnt-contain-a-microchip-2020-12?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">microchip</a>."They provided a conspiracy theory clip they got on YouTube and also said that it was discussed at their church. I started asking more questions about how they would insert a microchip if the vaccine is liquid, and they blocked me."<h2>'The devil's work'</h2>As the COVID-19 vaccines are rolled out, coronavirus skeptics have taken to social media to share their anti-vaxx credo. Having spent 2020 warning that the coronavirus was a '<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-youtube-remove-plandemic-video-with-unsubstantiated-coronavirus-claims-2020-5?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">plandemic</a>' conspiracy, the standard COVID-19 test, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-test-rapid-antigen-test-lateral-flow-pcr-explained-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">PCR</a> gave <a href="https://fullfact.org/online/dominic-raab-93-percent/">93% false-negatives</a> and labeled those who disagreed 'sheeple,' the mass vaccination rollout has now become the focus.Anti-vaccination opinions date back to the 18th century and the discovery of the first smallpox vaccine. In the US, religious leaders condemned them as 'the devil's work.'The contemporary anti-vaxx movement was born in 1998 when a British study by Andrew Wakefield linked the MMR vaccine to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/controversial-research-program-boosts-unlicensed-treatments-say-critics-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">autism</a>.Holly, a 42-year-old space engineer from Houston, <a href="https://www.insider.com/texas-family-with-covid-19-couldt-smell-that-house-fire-2021-1">Texas,</a> who also asked Insider not to publish her surname, fell out with her cousin and didn't speak to her for years after saying she was thinking of not getting her two-month-old son MMR vaccinated.Her cousin said that friends on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-stops-military-gear-weapon-accessory-advertisements-until-january-22-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Facebook</a> had stated that their kids started acting weird or different after getting vaccinated, "which sounded to me like confirmation bias," said Holly. "I said that it also wasn't fair to her son if he got sick. She didn't seem to care or think it was an issue."Although the Wakefield study has since been discredited and his medical license has been revoked, the anti-vaxx sentiment it energized is now feeding the opposition to the mass distribution of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jj-one-dose-covid-vaccine-late-stage-trial-results-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">COVID-19</a> shots.<div type="image" title="Andrew Wakefield" height="1992" width="2657" msid="80736178" hostid="261"></div><h2>'An extraordinary time'</h2>In 2019, the <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019">World Health Organization (WHO)</a> predicted that vaccine <a href="https://www.insider.com/why-parents-and-grandparents-across-the-us-are-getting-vaccinated-2021-1">hesitancy</a> would become one of the top 10 global health threats alongside <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rabbit-disease-bunny-ebola-spreading-us-2020-6?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Ebola</a>, HIV, and Dengue Fever. Common misconceptions and vaccine anxieties include:<ul><li>Vaccines may cause severe side effects and illnesses</li><li>Experts and doctors cannot be trusted</li><li>A belief in widespread <a href="https://www.insider.com/china-conspiracy-theory-claims-us-created-coronavirus-2021-1">conspiracy theories</a></li><li>Concerns that it is against human rights</li><li>A fear of needles</li></ul>Over a quarter of those in the US say they definitely or probably will not get a <keyword id="8904563" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19-vaccine">COVID-19 vaccine</keyword>, according to the latest market research by <a href="https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/coronavirus/infographic-public-opinion-about-covid-19-vaccination">Kantar</a>, with over a third disagreeing that the vaccines are safe. The figure is nearly four in ten people in France.<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/04/covid-vaccine-refuse-france-germany-us-quarter?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other"> Young people are the most vaccine-hesitant.</a> Only 32% of 18- to 24-year-olds across seven countries said they would definitely get vaccinated.Dr. Douglas J. Opel, Director of Clinical Ethics at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/seattle-hospital-invited-donors-coronavirus-vaccine-slots-invite-only-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Seattle</a> Children's Hospital, told Insider: "It's an extraordinary time with respect to vaccines because this is the first time one has been made available through emergency use authorization for the general public."He added that the main concerns he had heard were that the development of COVID-19 vaccines had been too fast to be safe. There are also misconceptions about the seriousness of the virus. "I do think there's some distinction to be made between reluctance to accept a COVID vaccine versus a hesitancy regarding general routine vaccinations. I think the overlap, though, is trust. Trust in the systems that develop, approve, and monitor vaccines as well as people who recommend and endorse them," Dr. Opel added. Read More: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-coronavirus-vaccine-may-help-pharmacies-and-retailers-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">T</a><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-coronavirus-vaccine-may-help-pharmacies-and-retailers-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">he pandemic dented pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens, but the vaccine rollout could give them a boost</a><div type="image" title="Tuskegee experiment" height="1568" width="1782" msid="80736179" hostid="261"></div><h2>The Tuskegee experiment</h2>Anxiety about mass vaccination is the highest in the US Black community, whose historical memory is scarred by historical, unethical experiments, including the notorious <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/black-scientist-coronavirus-vaccine-is-nothing-like-tuskegee-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Tuskegee</a> study.The Tuskegee experiment began in 1932 when 600 Black men were promised free healthcare to participate in a study at what was then the Tuskegee Institute in Macon County, Alabama. Run by the US Public Health Service (PHS), the participants were told that they were being treated for 'bad blood,' a term commonly used in the local area at the time to refer to a variety of ailments.However, they were actually being monitored by health workers and the 399 with syphilis were not given penicillin despite it becoming the recommended treatment in 1945 while the study was ongoing.On May 16, 1997, President Clinton formally apologized for the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.Dr. Fauci said of communities of color: "They keep coming back and saying the history of Tuskegee. They don't, can't, and should not forget about it because it happened and it was shameful."Anti-vaxxer activists are now looking to <a href="https://f4d9b9d3-3d32-4f3a-afa6-49f8bf05279a.usrfiles.com/ugd/f4d9b9_25e2a7b73e8c4236a53c1002db4017b4.pdf">exploit medical racism</a> casting it as the "new apartheid." <h2>'<keyword id="535763" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Misinformation">Misinformation</keyword> kills people'</h2>The endpoint of the new anti-vaxx narrative is to misappropriate the memory of Hitler's Nazi genocide.On Thursday, Piers Corbyn, the elder brother of the UK's former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was arrested for distributing leaflets comparing the COVID- 19 vaccine rollout to the transporting of Jews to Auschwitz. The leaflets have a sketch of the death camp in Poland. The mocking slogan on its gates, "Arbeit Macht Frei" or 'work sets you free' has been replaced by "Vaccines are safe path to freedom."<div type="image" title="Anti-Vaxx" height="427" width="640" msid="80736180" hostid="261"></div>Cllr Kieron Williams, Leader of Southwark Council, south London, where Corbyn was arrested, said on suspicion of malicious communications and public nuisance said he was playing into the fears of those most at risk from COVID-19, such as people from BAME backgrounds.The gush of misinformation has increased the pressure on social media companies to act. CCDH CEO, Imran Ahmed, told Insider: "The de-platforming of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitch-bans-trump-indefinitely-us-capitol-siege-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Trump</a> shows they understand the real-world impact they can have."<div type="image" title="Anti Vaccine" height="1000" width="1333" msid="80736182" hostid="261"></div>TikTok announced this week that the app would introduce banner warnings on "inauthentic, misleading or false content" to limit the spread of such <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/sec-hunting-fraud-misinformation-social-media-reddit-driven-trading-frenzy-2021-2-1030042965">misinformation</a> while being reviewed for removal. Asked if he agrees with the Royal Society and British Academy's <a href="https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/set-c/set-c-vaccine-deployment.pdf">view</a> that spreading anti-vaxx messages should become a criminal offense in the UK, Ahmed said: "People profit from misinformation and misinformation kills people. It is absolutely criminal." Dr. Paul A. Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/philadelphia-officer-gun-taken-after-appears-she-attended-dc-rally-2021-1?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T">Philadelphia,</a> said: "It's like if there were an anti-semitic website, free speech would become hate speech, so social media needs to clean up its act." Meanwhile, anti-vaxx extremism is taking its toll on families, friendship groups, and arguments are becoming more bitter.Azeza said the latest falling out with friends was personal and upsetting: "They were posting statuses and stories on WhatsApp and Instagram that contained a lot of <keyword id="1379614" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="conspiracy-theories">conspiracy theories</keyword> about the vaccine and COVID itself. I called them about it and that's when we started to fight. "The rest of our friend group tried to educate them on the matter, especially about COVID being fake."They said they didn't care. They only cared about the conspiracy. They even said that the government paid people who died of COVID. This hurt a lot because I lost my beloved uncle on December 31 and they knew about it," Azeza said.<h2>'We need to be more kind and empathetic'</h2>Ethan Lindenberger, 20, a prominent vaccine advocate from Norwalk, Ohio, first hit the headlines when he decided to get vaccinated against his mother's wishes when he turned 18 in 2018. He told Insider: "She was scared, emotional and confused. She didn't understand why I'd want to get vaccinated would ask me how I was feeling all the time as if she expected me to get sick."She's moved back to Texas now to be with her family but I can see on her social media profiles that now with COVID, she is falling down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and really buying into them."Asked whether the topic of vaccines is something that needs to be discussed with family and friends despite the potential to harm relationships, Lindenberger said: "It needs to be an everyday conversation. Vaccines are a medical issue, not a political issue."We need to be more kind and empathetic, and it's important we understand why people believe something."

How anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories are straining family ties and breaking up friendships as the COVID-19 vaccine is rolled out globally

How QAnon infiltrated the yoga world

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Data compiled for Insider by the analytics firm SimilarWeb showed that an online conspiracy-theory encyclopedia called <keyword id="9470414" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="wikispooks">Wikispooks</keyword> saw a 90% traffic increase in the US from March to May, during the height of the US coronavirus pandemic.</li><li>The data indicates that many people are landing on Wikispooks' website through organic search from search engines like Google.</li><li>Misinformation and <keyword id="1379614" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="conspiracy-theories">conspiracy theories</keyword> have run rampant during the pandemic and recent protests.</li><li>Wikispooks, founded in 2010, is centered on the unfounded conspiracy theory that a "deep-state" cabal of elites has massive power over essentially every sector of the world.</li><li>It contains large amounts of misinformation. </li></ul>An online encyclopedia used by conspiracy theorists to expose a "deep state" within world governments has had a 93.1% traffic increase in the US during the coronavirus pandemic compared with its metrics from March to May 2019, according to research conducted for Insider by SimilarWeb, a popular digital analytics firm.When Wikispooks' traffic hit a recent peak in May, visits to the site from the US were up 132.9% compared with May 2019.That finding comes as conspiracy theories and misinformation have emerged as significant influences on the perception of <a href="https://www.insider.com/violent-counter-protesters-bethel-ohio-black-lives-matter-protest-antifa-2020-6">protests</a> and <a href="https://www.insider.com/shelley-lewis-gelsons-mask-video-flat-earth-supermarket-refusal-entry-2020-5">COVID-19</a>.The data also indicates that people are finding Wikispooks, a website that describes New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as a "US politician and suspected deep state operative," through organic search results on search engines like Google. According to SimilarWeb, 72.1% of visits to Wikispooks came from search traffic between March and May, meaning that nearly three-quarters of users on the site arrived there from search queries, rather than from other sources or direct traffic to the Wikispooks URL.This data "suggests a high level of discoverability, with Wikispooks.com earning its traffic through inclusion of content around popular search queries," Ilana Marks, a marketing analyst at SimilarWeb, said. All of this search traffic is organic, which means it's not paid for by Wikispooks to drive readers to the site, Marks said.<div type="image" title="Monthly Traffic 19 20" height="882" width="1930" msid="76647721" hostid="261"></div>Between March and May, the number of unique visitors to the website was up 113.9%, compared to 2019. This is in juxtaposition with the decline in unique viewership on Wikipedia in the same time frame. SimilarWeb estimates that the number of unique visitors to Wikipedia was down 2.4% from March to May, compared with its 2019 metrics. SimilarWeb's data insights are frequently cited by other publications, including <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/covid-19-web-traffic-broadsheet-and-financial-news-sites-emerging-as-big-winners-of-the-crisis/">Press Gazette</a>, <a href="https://www.axios.com/business-finance-news-politics-coronavirus-3810b815-be69-4c66-bf44-ae9abe25b735.html">Axios</a><a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/covid-19-web-traffic-broadsheet-and-financial-news-sites-emerging-as-big-winners-of-the-crisis/"></a>, and <a href="https://www.adweek.com/retail/what-amazon-shoppers-buying-quarantine/">Adweek</a>.While SimilarWeb's search data covers all search engines, including Bing and Yahoo, Google is widely regarded the top search engine worldwide, with more than 90% of search-engine market share, according to <a href="https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share">StatCounter</a>, an online statistics tool.Exploring Google with Wikispooks' top search terms paints a picture similar to the data. The top search term for the site is "Lori Klausutis," who was a staffer of Joe Scarborough when he was a congressman before she died in 2001. President Donald Trump has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/opinion/twitter-trump-scarborough.html">repeatedly shared unproven conspiracy theories about her death</a>. Trump — a longtime foe of Scarborough, who is now an MSNBC host — has alleged that the former Florida congressman was somehow involved in Klausutis' death.An autopsy showed that she died of complications from an undiagnosed heart condition, but the Wikispooks entry on Klausutis explains in detail the conspiracy theories surrounding her death. During the writing of this piece, the top search result for Klausutis' name on Google was the Wikispooks entry. But as of Thursday afternoon, after reaching out to Google for comment, the Wikispooks page appeared as the second, third, or fourth result on most browsers.<div type="image" title="google lori klausutis" height="342" width="878" msid="76647724" hostid="261"></div>A Google search for Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey and one of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/maurene-comey-james-comey-daughter-leading-jeffrey-epstein-case-2019-7">lead prosecutors for the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking case</a>, yields a Wikispooks article on the first page of results.Maurene Comey's Wikispooks entry cites a conversation from the internet forum Saidit.net, often considered a fringe Reddit alternative, which falsely says that the attorney was the person who lost footage from Epstein's prison cell. In a filing, Comey placed the blame for the lost footage on the jail where Epstein was held. The circumstances surrounding Epstein's death have led to some of the most mainstream conspiracy theories this year, with the phrase "Epstein didn't kill himself" spreading even to meme accounts on Instagram. On Bing, a search for "Lori Klausutis" also presents the Wikispooks article among its top results, and a search for "Maurene Comey" presents that Wikispooks entry on its second page of results. A representative for Microsoft, which owns Bing, declined to comment. A representative for Google said search results are dynamic and change over time and that the company does not intentionally rank specific sites above others for organic results. While the search engine's algorithm prioritizes reliable, authoritative sources, the representative said it is possible for misinformation to rise to the top of the heap of content, adding that the company works to improve its overall systems to prevent false information from gaining top Google real estate.<h2>Wikispooks deals in conspiracy theories and verifiable falsehoods </h2>Wikispooks was founded a decade ago in the United Kingdom by a former businessman named Peter Presland, who has denied facts about the Holocaust and is a prominent promoter of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that the Israeli government was behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, according to radio interviews featuring Presland.In May 2010, Presland wrote in <a href="https://cryptome.org/0001/wikispooks.htm">a note archived online</a> that his website would be a "collaborative project aimed at building a comprehensive reference source of deep political structures and events, together with the people and organisations connected to them."Presland doesn't produce the website's content alone, as other users are able to submit and edit pages, like on Wikipedia. But according to the editing history of the site, the only changes to its main page in the past five years were made by Presland and a user named Robin Upton, whose profile page on Wikispooks describes him as an "economic dissident" and says he was born in the UK in 1970.But changes throughout the rest of the site have been made by a handful of others, too. The entry on the George Floyd protests, for example, was made by a user called Urban, whose page says they're a German software engineer, and a person named Sunvalley, whose page says they're also German. The protest page says the demonstrations "have been called a color revolution attacking Trump."Wikispooks' existence is predicated on the notion that information shared by Wikipedia, a digital encyclopedia, is corrupt. The website says Wikipedia is "little more than just one more corporate media outlet for the official (i.e. establishment-controlled) narrative."In many articles, Wikispooks is anti-media, anti-government, and antiestablishment. While its focus is on worldwide "deep politics" — or the site's stated belief that there are "clandestine groups who seek to exercise control over publicly acknowledged governments of nation states" — it places extra attention on US politics and media. Specifically, Democrats and traditional publications the subjects of intense lore.In its entry for The New York Times, for example, Wikispooks calls the paper a "long established and respected newspaper with 'a venerable history of eliding references to any US role in overthrowing governments or murdering foreign leaders.'" <div type="image" title="wikispooks new york times" height="411" width="1398" msid="76647728" hostid="261"></div>While the website is not directly affiliated with Wikipedia, both websites run on MediaWiki, open-source software that is freely available for download online. The Wikimedia Foundation, which developed MediaWiki and hosts Wikipedia, is a nonprofit organization with no control over what people use the software to create, a spokesperson said. "Like any web browser, the Mediawiki software is available to everyone, which means that sometimes it can also be misused by bad actors to spread misinformation," the Wikimedia spokesperson told Insider via email. On Wikispooks, that misinformation includes the theory that a top-secret cabal of important political figures controls the US government and has a grip on the global weaponry trade, drug trafficking, and Silicon Valley <keyword id="6358815" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tech">tech</keyword> companies. The deep-state theory is very similar to the theories proposed within the <keyword id="9152811" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="qanon">QAnon</keyword> conspiracy-theory movement, which follows the anonymous (and likely nonexistent) figure who serves as a prophet for believers of these deep-state conspiracies.<h2>Conspiracy theories have thrived online during the coronavirus pandemic</h2>While there are many reasons that could explain Wikispooks estimated traffic increase, it's hard to ignore the prevalence of conspiracy theories around the coronavirus. Wikispooks' entry on the pandemic suggests that users of the site tend to disagree with the science on COVID-19.Wikispooks says the virus is "generally mild or even asymptomatic, but occasionally fatal for those with weakened immune system." While many cases of COVID-19 can present with mild symptoms, or no symptoms, the disease has killed more than 473,000 people worldwide, <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019">according to the World Health Organization</a>. <a href="https://weillcornell.org/news/covid-19-why-is-it-mild-for-some-deadly-for-others">Weill Cornell Medicine reported</a> that the estimated chance of death from COVID-19 is "more than 13 percent for patients 80 and older, compared to about 0.15 percent for patients in their 30s, and virtually zero percent for patients under 20." The coronavirus entry doubles down on its minimization of the severity of this virus, saying WHO's categorization of the disease as a pandemic, and an "overstatement" of cases, led to "COVID Panic." There has been no evidence that death counts, in the US and worldwide, are in any way overstated. During the coronavirus pandemic, people of all stripes have propagated conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus, its best course of treatment, and its severity. Even <a href="https://www.insider.com/lifestyle-influencers-using-covid-19-to-spread-qanon-conspiracy-theory-2020-5">fashion and lifestyle influencers</a>, as well as celebrities and politicians, have adopted and spread some of these beliefs.These theories — including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-plandemic-movie-got-wrong-about-coronavirus-vaccines-2020-5">false explanations for why mask wearing is dangerous</a>, an idea popularized by the widely shared "Plandemic" video — are created "to go viral and to spread quickly," Gabby Deutch, the Washington correspondent for the internet-trust-analysis tool NewsGuard, said. Deutch added that COVID-19 misinformation, which offers people easy answers or solutions for the complicated virus, could be seen as more entertaining than the actual health information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and WHO. <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation">Researchers from the Reuters Institute</a> at the University of Oxford wrote in April that the majority of engagement with coronavirus misinformation online came from posts by politicians, celebrities, and social-media influencers. "Members of the public appear to have many reasons for sharing pieces of misinformation, including a desire to 'troll,' the legitimate belief information is true, and political partisanship," the report said. "The reason why they catch on, especially during a situation like the pandemic or the protests, is because they claim to have all the answers, and they attract people who feel like they are alienated or are afraid, or just don't really understand what's happening in the world," said Alex Newhouse, the digital research lead at the <a href="https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec">Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism</a> at Middlebury College's Institute of <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">International</keyword> Studies. "And so QAnon or Wikispooks, or what have you, professes to give them a reason why that is happening." The "comprehensive resource" Presland created can now lead people to believe things that are categorically untrue and foster a sense of credibility among deep-state believers. "People are absolutely emboldened by something like Wikispooks," Newhouse said. "They're able to go to that website; they're able to see a very clear-cut explanation that fits in with the suspicions and the paranoia that they already have, and it makes them feel better because they're able to connect the dots," he added. <ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/lifestyle-influencers-using-covid-19-to-spread-qanon-conspiracy-theory-2020-5">Lifestyle influencers are using COVID-19 to spread QAnon conspiracy theories: 'I truly believe I owe it to my audience to be more for them during this turning point in our culture'</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/boogaloo-bois-protest-far-right-minneapolis-extremist-guns-hawaiian-shirts-2020-5">Far-right civil war accelerationists called the Boogaloo Bois are appearing at protests around the country with guns and Hawaiian shirts</a></li><li><a href="https://www.insider.com/how-to-push-back-when-your-family-talks-conspiracy-theories-2020-5">How to respond to your family's coronavirus conspiracy theories</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-no-intelligence-antifa-weekend-violence-george-floyd-protests-2020-6">FBI 'has no intelligence' indicating antifa was linked to weekend violence in the George Floyd protests, despite Trump and Republicans' claims</a></li></ul>

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How anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories are straining family ties and breaking up friendships as the COVID-19 vaccine is rolled out globally

Naina Bhardwaj

How QAnon infiltrated the yoga world

Rachel E. Greenspan,Gabby Lan…

Conspiracy-theory encyclopedia Wikispooks is thriving during the coronavirus pandemic, seeing huge traffic gains from search engines

Rachel E. Greenspan