Clint Watts: It’s a ‘Super-Organized Effort’ To Spread Virus Conspiracy Theories to ‘Erode Trust’

‘If you throw all those sparks at the same time, it can start that fire of disinformation’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT
TODD:  "In the past three months, there’s been a spike in belief in conspiracies. Virtually all of them without factual basis. Which makes them impossible to disprove. And that’s the point. Joining me now is NBC news national security analyst Clint Watts who specialized in tracking how conspiracies form and spread. He’s a senior fellow in the alliance for securing democracy. Clint, it’s good to see you. Good to see that you’re safe. Let me start with this. You have a way of mapping these conspiracies out and how they catch on. And you described it this way. How to build a disinformation bonfire and in this case, like a bonfire, the first thing you need is a spark. And the spark being a theory is put online. In this case, why are these sparks so potent this time?"
WATTS:  "When we are scared, chuck, and the time of a pandemic, when we’re not really sure what to believe, we’re fearful, both for our life and the health of our families, we tend to take in information we might not otherwise consider. When you see these sparks thrown out there, there is a demand signal as well for it. People want to know, are they safe, can I trust this information, and then people that have, you know, different agendas, maybe it’s anti-vax, maybe it’s reopening the country, maybe it’s a conspiracy by elites. If you throw all those sparks at the same time, it can start that fire of disinformation."

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