Build a conspiracy theory from scratch.
The best way to learn to spot a conspiracy theory is to make one yourself.
Pick a real news story. On the next step you'll choose who's behind it and why. Then walk through the four moves real conspiracists use, with a debunk on every step.
- Hunt anomalies — turn coincidence into evidence of a secret plot.
- Fabricate connections — draw lines between unrelated dots until they look meaningful.
- Dismiss counter-evidence — if a fact disagrees, make the fact part of the cover-up.
- Discredit the critics — dismiss people who point out flaws in your theory.
Pick the event.
Choose whichever real-feeling headline your imagination will run wildest with. Don't overthink it.
Fixing the British Museum's Anachronism
The British Museum is dealing with a major internal crisis after allegations that a senior curator removed and sold roughly 2,000 items from its collection via eBay. Reports say the revelations prompted the museum director to resign and have led to calls for an independent review. The case has drawn attention to weaknesses in oversight and controls at one of the world’s largest museums, raising questions about how objects are tracked and safeguarded.
West's Voters Divided by Identity
A recent YouGov–Cambridge Globalism Project survey finds that voters in Western democracies are more divided by identity and partisan loyalty than by specific policy positions. Researchers describe strong "affective polarization": people feel intense dislike for opposing groups even when those groups often share similar views on key debates such as sexism, racism, and economic policy. The findings challenge the idea that culture wars are mainly about conflicting opinions; instead, much conflict appears driven by who people see as "us" versus "them."
Meta seeks EU consent for ads
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, says it will start asking users in the European Union for permission to show personalized advertising. The move follows regulatory rulings that challenged Meta’s data-collection methods for targeted ads. Rather than relying on a “legitimate interest” justification, Meta has conceded it must obtain explicit consent under EU data-protection rules before using people’s personal data to tailor ads on its platforms.
Video games aid paralyzed speech
Researchers at Speech Graphics, UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley report a brain–computer interface that helped a woman who lost speech after a stroke communicate again. Tiny electrodes were placed on the surface of her brain to record neural activity while she attempted to speak. That recorded activity was decoded into written text, a synthetic voice and real-time facial animation using software originally developed for video-game characters such as those in The Last of Us Part II and Hogwarts Legacy.