Conspiracy theories tend to have a shelf life even after being debunked. They can also spawn further sub-theories which rely upon the original theory being true and have even been the topic of some big-budget documentaries. There are of course examples of conspiracy theories which turned out to be true or part-true but these are exceptions that prove the rule.

One of the difficulties of dealing with conspiracies is that the adherents appear to be practising a scepticism of mainstream media accounts, which is something media and information literacy educators tend to encourage. This is perhaps why it is helpful to focus on their non-falsifiability.

For example

Archived here, the article, from a counterfeit website called CNN.com.de claims: “Donald Trump Says the Earth is flat.” Note that there is no disclaimer on the site suggesting their content is satire. Belief in the veracity of the story obviously grew in popularity such that the fact-checking website Snopes felt the need to debunk it.

Is this satire, hoax, bogus information, partisanship, or a conspiracy theory--or all of the above?

The Eclipse Conspiracy

This satirical article from The Atlantic uses many of the same arguments found in conspiracy theories;

why isn’t the media talking about this? ✓
promoting the eclipse is just a way for some rich person to sell special glasses ✓
Google is covering up results that say the eclipse is fake ✓
NASA is lying to us ✓

note: This information is from Luc Steinberg's blog post "Infographic: Beyond Fake News – 10 Types of Misleading News," (26 July 2017) for EAVI and was accessed on 15 July 2020.