I'd say the community is under attack from all different groups with varying agendas, so I wouldn't blame the community as a whole, but those factors. Seems like you have a perticular post in mind, would you mind sharing so I can see specifically what your talking about?

I hate to bring it up, but there are shills who are here specifically to forum slide, provide disinfi or ridicule. It was a strategy that Cass Sunstein proposed the US government should infiltrate conspiracy communities to mess with them. That was 10 years ago and I tend to believe It's still in operations today. With that said, there's also just users who are real who just want to get their rocks off and fuck with people. Just keep doing you and call out the BS or ignore it, but it's nothing new in this community and it's far from dead imo.

Oh for sure, just between consiratard and top minds there is a base of users who try and fuck with this place, let alone the T_D (Cambridge Analytics) & r/politics (CTR/Shareblue) crowds.

r/conspiracy is alive and well!

You are aware. I like that.

let alone the T_D (Cambridge Analytics) & r/politics (CTR/Shareblue) crowds.

And they HATE when you don't pick a side.

They really do, they lose their minds. Trump isn't fighting the fight the T_D crowd thinks he's fighting, but I also don't buy the Russia-Trump collusion story either. I personally think his win scared everyone, the deep state went on the attack because he ran on a non-interventionist platform, but now Trump is leading us into war in the Pacific and the MIC like him. The Trump-Russia story is now just cover so #resist won't talk about real issues like the US increasing the Afghanistan war, domestic surveillance, confronting China & Russia in the Pacific, or any domestic policy. Shit the Dems aren't offing anything different, where was their tax plan. I remember when one side would actually oppose the other with legislation and ideas, now it's "We're not Trump, so... Yeah!". It's all so fucked up now a days.

It's sad. But I used to be one of them. I thought the MSM would never lie, except Fox of course, and never could have even fathomed my own government could have a hand in anything like 911.

I remember a lot of people starting to realize it though when it came out we were arming "rebels" in Syria, and realizing those rebels were actually ISIS. Which is also the same time a lot of the other shit hit the fan and led us to the way things currently are.

But it gives me hope that people will come around and start researching on their own. Especially after the IG report comes out. But there have been bigger stories that got buried before, so...

I remember a lot of people starting to realize it though when it came out we were arming "rebels" in Syria, and realizing those rebels were actually ISIS. Which is also the same time a lot of the other shit hit the fan and led us to the way things currently are.

I've been in this rabbits hole for 15+ years at least, but it's interesting to hear how people were woken up by certain events. If the media actually did their job, I'm sure the Syria situation would wake a lot of people up. To me, it was clear as day that ISIS had to be a US supported group. Just the initial story of them taking crude oil, transporting it, refining it and sell it on a black market and making 3 million a day, while fighting a war was pretty incredible. Especially when you add in they only had 20,000 members. It was laughable in my mind, especially if you followed everything that went down in Libya before hand and how those rebels moved onto Syria in 2012 and that's what kicked everything off. You also didn't see any US news outlets cover the fact that Obama & Hillary both knew that Qatar & Saudi were supporting ISIS directly, and we just so happened to have a CIA program that ran weapons, financial support and training through those countries that started at the same time ISIS popped up.... Sorry for the rant...

I'm a casual around here but I noticed the same thing. Too many people think k that their opinions matter vs the truth and facts. It's unfortunate because I really like investigating conspiracies with like-minded people but this place is almost cancerous at times.

But even if you do try to correct a mistake you will genrally be called a shill in some round about way.

Too many people in this sub have this idea that everything is a conspiracy and nothing is ever a simple explanation. I posted one personal story about being at a school where a school shooting occurred and I stated that there was nothing fishy about it. It was just a “normal” school shooting. I got bombarded with “you don’t have all the facts” and “how do you know” and shit like that. Its embarrassing.

There are a half million people here. That amounts to a lot of ideas and opinions.

If you don't like hanging out with 500k conspiracy theorists, why do it?

About 75% of that 500k are pretty cool. That’s why I do it.

So, when you get that last 25% to stop challenging the accepted narrative you'll be happy?

When they stop challenging the narrative of something they know absolutely nothing about and simply challenge it because I said there wasn’t anything fishy about it.

It was hardly on the news and wasn’t anything spectacular or questionable about it. There’s no logic or basis behind what they were saying. They didn’t back anything up. They just challenged it because I commented in r/conspiracy. Is that how it works around here?

So, you think you know what it is all about when the news tells you and you resent people questioning it?

That is not even remotely applicable. I talked about a shooting at a school that I went to and stated my first hand knowledge of the situation, as well as people in the room where it happened and many other people involved. I then relayed how I knew what I knew and why it wasn’t fishy. Then people who had no knowledge of it started questioning but based on what? Nothing. There should be reason to question something. If a part of the official narrative didn’t make sense to them or they didn’t believe a certain “fact” then sure, challenge the narrative.

That wasn’t the case. They didn’t have any information or actual questions or concerns of the narrative. They just blurted out “yOu Dnt HavE thE same Facs as the KopS sO hoW do u no it Wuznt a conspiraCY”. That’s why people don’t take other seriously when they question the official narrative of an event. It’s baseless and senseless tin-foil hat shit. It makes them look very unintelligent.

Good fucking question.

i completely agree. it’s maddening.

conspiracy is dead, long live conspiracy

A good ol conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy.

I agree and was told I might be shadow banned, I’m not sure if I am or a paid employee was trying to get me to shut up. It is a shame where not only this community is right now but the world in general.

You are not

I think you're shadow banned.

O_O I knew it!

Spooky

Thanks I did t think so but the shadow banned group ignored me, I believe for comedic effect, good on them.,,,, thanks for answering 😛

I've seen lots of threads claiming Reddit or the sub itself is under attack and while that's probably true here and true absolutely every where else on the Internet, I'm worried people will discredit what they see to that. Just scripted, trying to sway people to their agenda, when in reality it's just us by posting the way we post and interacting the way we do causing the problems. It's easy to push the problem onto some conspiracy instead of just really seeing or dealing with the problem.

People get post happy without fact checking themselves. People also get mean. Doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.

People are also other times very knowledgeable and nice. Is that a conspiracy, too?

If a poster doesn't see their own errors or isn't open to back and forth well, then they don't understand the point of the sub and we should hold people accountable for being mean on our own by just getting over it and leaving the conversation.

And you also have to look at it from your side. Maybe someone is being mean to you but maybe it escalated because you're wasting your time and keep commenting back over and over when it's not changing anything but just adding to your own stress and also amplifying the fire of the fight.

Even if you're right and you're correcting what they posted for the sake of the truth---you shouldn't be playing the fight game though, either. You got to know when to step away. If you're goal is to change their mind it can't be done by force, and why would you want to force someone, anyway? If a thread is just blatantly wrong, don't give it more power.

Sometimes silence is all that's needed. When something doesn't get reception or attention it's less likely to happen because that is the goal usually: attention. People want upvotes and comments and the like and then it becomes no different than other social media. That's why some posters react so badly when you call them out because they want so hard to be right. That's the part that matters to them. That they were right. Not that they were necessarily calling out a real problem or a conspiracy. They might not even know that could be their motive deep down. It feels nice when you feel smart and saw something no one else did and you can get lost and carried away with that.

The TL;DR: anyone who has good intentions will not fight with you, even if they don't agree. If they fight, just back off. Can't force people to drink the truth. Water kills if shoved down your throat for you. You have to drink it yourself.

Are you advocating for silence? What?

As opposed to getting in a comment war with an OP, yeah. It's supposed to be back and forth. Not fighting. Like, if an OP posts something that can be fact checked and is wrong and you both just keep fighting over it.

Describe "fact check" for me.

Someone posted about the flu vaccine and that you shouldn't be able to get sick from it if you were vaccinated.

I replied with a CDC link that shows that the flu vaccine only covers a few strains and you can still get sick from another strain.

Of course some of the more out there conspiracies can't really be fact checked but some can.

I would like to see that post. Most of our users that post about vax are very knowledgeable.

Can you provide the post?

It should be in my history but the OP themselves admitted to knowing that but posting a thread about it anyway pretending as if they didn't know.

But that's not really my point anyway.

So, what is your point?

Ok. OP here describes a situation in their post. Here's the situation:

A generic OP to a generic conspiracy thread writes a post. Reader disagrees or have proof to why their proofs or conspiracies are not correct or not as they saw it. Reader comments. Generic OP gets mad and instead of considering what reader, now commenter, has to say. Tells them off or they are stupid, whatever.

I'm saying at that point you shouldn't fight back with them. I'm not saying to operate on Reddit in complete silence. I'm saying to not feed people who are being mean. Stop commenting. Stop giving their thread more traction if it's completely false or somewhat bogus and they are being mean about it.

You commented and gave them what they needed to see to show them new info or how theirs doesn't add up and if they don't like the advice, you shouldn't keep fighting about it. Even if they started first, better person doesn't finish it. They realize when it's time to stop taking part and move on.

I would just appreciate a single post where this happened.

It happens all the time. That's the point of OP posting about it. Just look through a conspiracy thread.

"Oh you're a dumb whatever this and that and you don't know what you're talking about ..."

I see it in threads all the time, from OPs and commenters alike and everybody.

If it happens "all the time" it should be easy to provide a link, right?

You disagree that people are mean to each other here on Reddit sometimes instead of properly discussing with each other?

It's a very wide Internet. A very wide Reddit. If you haven't experienced it or at least seen a comment where people name call each other and bully and be mean, well, I wouldn't know where to direct you. I personally don't research when other people are using their comments to be mean to other people in random threads online. I just see it on the occasions I see it and move on.

Just waiting on your proof, friend.

So, silence. In a subreddit that is specifically designed to express alternative points of view?

So, if I post something that goes against the MSM narrative, at what point in the MSM brigade should I just shut up?

Yep, exactly! It's like when a kid cries for a toy. You can give them the toy, take them out of the store, try to be rational with them or you can just stop rewarding the behavior with any attention cause sometimes that's all it is. I'm not saying we should call people or or rather, enlighten them, when they are wrong because yeah, you can come to real stuff that way.

But, if you comment to the OP why they are wrong or you believe they are wrong and are met with rudeness, yeah, their fault for being rude but it's your fault for staying after that and continuing it.

I'm just saying to think of whether you're helping it escalate. We are reading text on a screen and it doesn't always read the same in our heads or mean what it meant to OP or another commenter/reader. And what one person takes as mean, maybe it's too vague to be. Some people take being told their wrong as mean when it's not.

And if you keep feeding it after that you're not really any better. Cause if the point was to educate someone you didn't do it but made it worse. I'm saying comment, say what needs to be said civil, and leave it at that. If the discussion continues, and it's fine for it to do so, but if OP gets butt hurt you should just stop after that. Don't make yourself a victim or play the victim. I think after you realize someone isn't listening to you and you keep poking at them you end up doing something wrong yourself, even if they started it.

The government tries to divide us among ourselves so that we are not working towards one common goal. The same thing is happening here (and on Reddit in general) on a smaller scale. It is disappointing that we have to wade through the propagandist bots/shills and what have you, but real posts true to the heart of conspiracy are still being submitted. You just have the patience to look past others agendas.

I just want less political posts and more weird shit. I want to read about how flamingos are actually aliens from the future, not why Donald Trump's diet is going to lead to World War 4.

Be the change you want to see.

/r/conspiracyII

how flamingos are actually aliens from the future

What does that have to do with secret plans by groups of people to do something unlawful or harmful? Because that's the definition of the word "conspiracy". If a topic doesn't involve groups of people secretly doing bad shit, it's not a conspiracy. Only reason weird things like aliens, cryptids, psychics, etc., are connected to this community is because of the idea that there are cover-ups related to them.

Then fuck off. You can't even designate one post.

"Dead" on forums usually means no one is posting. That is not the case here.

At any given time, the majority of people here are not conspiracy theorists. They are bots or shills just trying to politically influence people here.

Jokes on them. Conspiracy theorists dont buy into the political theater bullshit these assholes are selling. We know the whole system is rotten to the core.

We have become bread and circuses.

"Become"? It's always been about bread and circuses since ancient Rome when the phrase was coined as "panem et circenses". That is how the rulers of any human society have always maintained control, it's not new at all.

I introduced my friend here the other day. He lasted about a day. He joined in with a 9/11 thread. He believes something off happened that day but not everything. When he made his comment stating what he felt and why he felt what the commentator had said was wrong and why he thought that he was called a shill and mocked by 3 different users. Needless to say he thought wtf is the point of this if they dont want to converse.

A lot of attacking and low quality comments. Subreddit has been pretty unwelcoming lately.

They do that deliberately. They even go on other sockpuppets to complain about the divisive trolling publicly so we all know that they're doing it.

lol

It's the results of the brigades, triggering the backfire effect and swallowing all conversation on this sub to spout actual talking points that would have made this community sick three years ago.

People have been trolling forums since forever.
Personal attacks are simply one form of trolling.

The proper response is don't feed the trolls. Just ignore them and the'll get bored and move on.

No

It's always been like this. We got Trump elected. It's gotten a bit worse. That's badge of honor to the long time lurkers and contributors.

Oh, well... what do you expect when you make actual change... ATTACK!! Bring it.

You think you “got Trump elected”? How, exactly?

I think Russia got Trump elected, if this is the game we’re playing now.

In the two years leading up to Trump's election, /r/conspiracy was gunning for him, hard... if only to keep Hillary out.

I don't know a single "conspiracy theorist" in real life that voted for Hillary. A few voted for Stein. No one voted Libertarian. A couple Bernie boys, and a lot of Trumpies. My brother is in this sub. He voted for Obama, and then after reading /r/conspiracy for a couple years... voted for Trump... to beat Hillary.

Very few people here like Trump. He's a hawk. He's a bombast. He's 75.19% better than Hillary, and that's why we stumped for him on this sub. It seems strange anyone who was on this sub would doubt this fact. When T_D got shut down for a day, we invited them here.

The change in tone around here is obviously manufactured.

I was wondering why you were being so salty, so I took a look at your history. I didn't quite find what I was looking for, but I found this interesting thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/7xrtn7/question_has_the_usefulness_of_reddit_to_act_as/duamd6y/

The top level comment there says "Nothubg3 but a bunch of hateful, uneducated, closed minded bullies here" and you responded by repeatedly trolling this person. I'd say you were right to "call bullshit on that one", but look at the tone your comments took as you kept it up going back and forth with nothing of value from anyone being said. Pithy insults and a clear effort to rope that other idiot in to a stupid argument. What were you hoping to accomplish by feeding that troll with your own troll bullshit? Do you think anyone wants to read a conversation where one troll trolls another troll?

Furthermore, the person you replied to was broadly insulting the entire community. That's dumb and it's appropriate to call out people who would do that. You said that was "bullshit", but then you turn around and make a self-post here broadly insulting the entire community. Are you aware of what you are doing? You're partaking in the same kind of behavior here that you were trolling that other user over. What were you hoping to accomplish with this post?

Its not dead. Just have to sift through the garbage.

I hate to bring it up, but there are shills who are here specifically to forum slide, provide disinfi or ridicule. It was a strategy that Cass Sunstein proposed the US government should infiltrate conspiracy communities to mess with them. That was 10 years ago and I tend to believe It's still in operations today. With that said, there's also just users who are real who just want to get their rocks off and fuck with people. Just keep doing you and call out the BS or ignore it, but it's nothing new in this community and it's far from dead imo.