It's pretty easy to justify why you would lie, if I think you are an ideologue who truly believes that Facebook trending topics must be curated with a certain s

It's pretty easy to justify why you would lie, if I think you are an ideologue who truly believes that Facebook trending topics must be curated with a certain slant for the greater good. When you believe in a conspiracy theory, hearing "why would I lie" doesn't change your mind, quite the opposite. It's also not true that there's "nothing that anyone can say that would prove that any system works as described". There's no general statement that will convince everyone, because everyone has personalized doubt about it. It's certainly possible to assuage the fears of a conspiracy theorist - take their examples, give a credible, particularized explanation(not a vague "it's algorithmic", but describe the steps in detail), and show some goodwill to address their underlying fears. What you perhaps wanted to say was that you don't really care about convincing conspiracy theorists, which is fine, but very different. edit: wording