Twitter’s Conservative Conspiracy Threads
I just got started on Twitter, and after a few weeks I noticed that my Twitter feed had far more conservative tweets than any other kind — there were far more conservative takes on politics than there were, say, tweets about art, astronomy, leftist takes on politics, or cats. And not just conservative tweets, but really out-there conservative tweets if you catch my drift, the sort that wouldn’t be out of place if read aloud on Info Wars.
I’m not out of hand against conservative politics or conspiracy theories, but it did get me wondering: whose fault is this?
It’s obviously my fault. On the one hand, I follow a few such propagators-of-conspiracy-theories, like rogue philosopher Nick Land and podcaster Bronze Age Pervert, who I don’t (fully) endorse but who regularly challenge my thinking. Aside from this, I also engage a lot in conspiracy threads, which I assume Twitter makes note of. And the Twitter algorithm takes it from there, putting these wingnut conspiracy theories in my face at all hours of the day.
Anyway, I can’t stop reading these long, gruesome conspiracy threads about, say, sex-trafficking rings, Michelle Obama’s alleged sex change, and satanic government cabals.
What makes these Twitter threads so addictive? First of all, they’re incredibly entertaining. Some of these threads read like dystopic sci-fi stories. But there’s another reason I keep coming back: there’s always some truth hidden among the incredible claims.
For example, yesterday I read a thread that focused on the Clintons and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which killed over a hundred thousand people. It claimed a number of things, any of which, if true, would have made front-page headlines for weeks in the New York Times, such as: the Clintons laundered billions of dollars through Haiti relief efforts; the Clintons are involved in a child sex-trafficking ring in Haiti; the Clintons took advantage of the 2010 earthquake to mine and extract Haiti’s gold. I couldn’t find credible sources to back up these claims (maybe I didn’t look hard enough, maybe they don’t exist) but as I searched I stumbled across some excellent journalism about the Clintons and Haiti.
In an investigative report for ABC News, I learned that the Clintons have indeed been involved with Haiti in ways that raise eyebrows. Following the 2010 earthquake, the Clintons helped orchestrate the construction of an industrial park in Haiti, where many of the individuals and firms involved were donors to the Clinton Foundation. The first major tenant of the industrial park was a Korean garment manufacturer, Sae-A, who makes clothes for Gap, Old Navy, and Wal-Mart. The article ends with a quote from Bill Clinton: “It was the most organized, clearly directed efforts to bring private capital to Haiti.”
The article painted a subtle picture of capital and power, a genuinely nuanced and interesting read. It didn’t prove any of the claims in the Twitter thread, but I wouldn’t have read it had I not been deep in the Twitter rabbit hole.
Another thread I recently read was on Pizzagate, the 2016 conspiracy theory about an elite child sex-trafficking ring, focused on Washington DC liberal politicians (do all tweets lead back to the Clintons?). The Twitter thread linked to an article purporting to provide evidence for Pizzagate. To my surprise, the article quoted heavily from a recent article in the WSJ.
The WSJ article details how Stanford researchers discovered a vast and barely-concealed network of child-pornography distributers on Instagram. The article gives examples of the coded language that these accounts and their clients used to escape notice, such as using a map emoji — an acronym for minor attracted person — and using a cheese pizza emoji, which shares acronyms with child pornography. Again, this doesn’t come close to proving Pizzagate, but I’m indebted to these conspiracy theorists for making me aware of this research and its incredibly concerning findings.
It’s hard to draw lessons from this. If I browsed major news sites more often I could have saved myself the trouble and learned about these things without the insane Twitter commentary. All I have to say is that reading widely — wacky Twitter threads include — is probably a good thing, and always go in with an open mind. What you might discount out of hand might end up teaching you something.
If you’re struggling with the same addiction, say hi to me on Twitter!
