Today’s Cuckoo Award does not go to an individual but instead to a group of people who believe that the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse was done by a clandestine organization.
Cuckoo, cuckoo!The Baltimore bridge collapse gave conspiracy theorists a chance to boost themselves
NPR
By Shannon Bond
March 27, 2024A familiar pattern played out in the hours following Tuesday's bridge collapse in Baltimore: social media influencers and right-wing media figures began spreading conspiracy theories and baseless rumors about the disaster.
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But some large accounts on social media platforms including X, formerly known as Twitter, were quick to suggest otherwise. Andrew Tate, an online influencer with 9 million followers on X who has been indicted on human trafficking and rape charges in Romania, claimed without evidence that that the ship had been "cyber-attacked" in a post viewed 13.4 million times. (The post carries a "Community Note" — the platform's user-generated fact-checking feature — stating that the incident is still being investigated and that his assertion was "speculation.")
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been ordered to pay $1.5 billion to the families of victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting, which Jones has falsely claimed was a "false flag," amplified Tate's baseless suggestion to his own 2.2 million X followers, saying "A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started."
Researcher Mike Rothschild, who has written books about QAnon and other conspiracy theories, said it has become "standard" for any unexpected event "to be run through a filter of conspiracy theories based on the personal brand of the person spreading the theory."
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