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August 15, 2006

Conspiracy Theories and 10 August Attempted Bombings

There seems to have been something of a merging between US and UK conspiracy theories: using the Internet to respond to the recent reports of a foiled plot to bomb UK planes, the British 9/11 Truth Campaign began arguing that this was also a government conspiracy impressively quickly after events were made public. Similar US campaigns are taking similar positions.

Conducting their campaigns online allows activists in different states to work together and communicate effectively, and to find common causes. The announcement of the foiled attacks also seems to have rekindled UK interest in the Loose Change video: certainly '9/11 truth' campaigners here in the UK seem to be re-energised and, to draw from a very unscientific sample, since the 10th August I've had e-mails from a few different people telling me to watch the video. I haven't seen these e-mails circulating for a while.

There's an interesting mix of speed and anachronism here: new technologies allow very quick responses to political events; however, one response is to publicise a video which has been around long enough to be pretty effectively torn apart by its critics. Virtual technology, getting discredited information to us more quickly than ever before...

Posted by jon_mendel at August 15, 2006 06:15 PM