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.
Loch Ness Monster search resumes
The Loch Ness search, described as the biggest in fifty years, took place over the weekend at Scotland’s Loch Ness. The Loch Ness Centre partnered with Loch Ness Exploration to run the operation and invited volunteers to join boat patrols that ran from about 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Organizers set up 17 official spotting points around the loch and asked the public to report any unusual sightings to the survey team.
CPAC Europe embraces right-wing authoritarians
CPAC Hungary, the Budapest edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference, gathered American and European conservative activists, politicians, and commentators to discuss what organizers called the decline of Western civilization. Sessions focused on immigration, resistance to progressive social policies, and critiques of liberal democracy. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán was a prominent speaker, and some remarks echoed the “great replacement” language while emphasizing national sovereignty and cultural preservation.
Google Search Update: UI Revamp
Google is expanding a tool called "Results about you," first introduced last year to help people remove personal information from Search results. The new version will actively scan the public web for instances of a user’s personal data and send alerts so they can request removal. Google says the feature is currently available in the United States in English and will be rolled out to more regions over time.
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.