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.
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.
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.
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.
Email from Russia
Garry Kasparov, the Russian-born former world chess champion, has publicly endorsed Anatoly Fomenko’s “New Chronology,” a radical revision of world history. Fomenko’s thesis argues that much of what we call ancient history is misdated or duplicated and that the actual historical timeline is far shorter than commonly believed. Kasparov says he finds the questions it raises important and plans to spend more time promoting these ideas as he moves away from professional chess.