Shows there’s nothing wacky about conspiracy theorists

Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have delved into the world of online conspiracy theories, showing most of the people behind them are actually pretty ordinary. The study looked at eight years of content, sifting through more than two billion comments posted on Reddit, including everything posted to the subreddit r/conspiracy. R/conspiracy covers everything from UFOs and 9/11, to political conspiracy theories like 'pizzagate', which took off during the 2016 US election campaign. But despite the subject matter, lead author of the study Dr Colin Klein says conspiracy theorists aren't always a bunch of "crackpots wearing tinfoil hats". "In the past before the rise of online forums like Reddit, we tended to only hear about the most extreme views, and those people tended to naturally be wary about talking to someone else about their beliefs," Dr Klein said. "These massive online forums paint a very different picture. "The enormous set of comments we examined show many r/conspiracy users actually have more 'sensible' interests.