I would argue that the real gas on the conspiracy fire is the combination of the ad/attention based internet economy and the power of algorithms. They plug in d

I would argue that the real gas on the conspiracy fire is the combination of the ad/attention based internet economy and the power of algorithms. They plug in data and tell algorithms to increase viewing time and clicks, however you can. Well, it turns out that of all the topics people are interested in, outrage is one of the best ways to keep people engaged and to encourage them to engage others. So when person X clicks on one news item questioning vaccine safety, the algorithm starts sprinkling in more inflammatory articles and a few videos. So they click on a couple. Which leads them to groups of other people that reinforce the belief and leads to more clicks and more viewership. Very quickly, most of their online experience shows them that vaccines never worked, that it is a government hoax, and there are a plethora of “experts” to back up and continually reinforce this idea. We seem to have accidentally automated conspiracy theory propagation.