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For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
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Most conspiracy theories have at least some truth, with the rest being assumptions based on things proven true. Is Jeffery Epstein an agent of a shadowy super organization that spent decades collecting evidence of rich and powerful men abusing children to keep them under control?
Maybe. Parts of that are undeniably true, and the rest of that also happened separately(see finders cult). You'd be a conspiracy theorist to combine the two though, especially if you were to present this information in 2003, despite both things still being true then.
As far as your actual point; whistle blower have "committed suicide" by shooting themselves twice in the back of the head, dislocating their joints, and shoving themselves post mortem into a duffle bag in a ny apartment. (See CIA whistle blowers, NYPD whistleblowers.) Its not crazy to assume someone that took on someone powerful was killed and was made to look suicidal, that's literally something that has happened thousands of times in the last 5 decades. As to why, it's easier. It stops official investigations. Its over with and must people will assume it is true and anyone that questions it will be a crazy conspiracy theorist.
One of the biggest successes of the Conservative Propaganda Machine is that while sowing insane conspiracy theories, they have simultaneously made people dismiss conspiracy theories in general. That allows them to get away with ACTUAL conspiracies, and silence critics by disparaging them for spreading "conspiracy theories."
Some conspiracies do exist, and those who are part of them ALWAYS deny them.
People already dismissed conspiracy theories in general. I'm old enough to remember a time when conspiracism was a fringe belief system back in the 90's and 2000's when I was a kid.
The right-wing infosphere has normalized conspiracism. Fox News got people to believe there was a conspiracy where there was none so the Republicans could enact the equivalent of a conspiracy in broad daylight. TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, is the go to accusation for the MAGA movement against their opposition. Calling people conspiracy theorists would probably cause a bit of cognitive dissonance for Republican voters.
All kinds of people deny conspiracy theories usually because of the lack of evidence and attempts at grifting. Trump never denies involvement in Jan 6th, he mostly lies about the nature of the attack on the capital. He intentionally mischaracterizes the attack as peaceful despite the deaths.
Iran-Contra was an actual conspiracy, and it truly happened. I once explained it to someone younger who had never heard of it, and when I was finished explaining they asked "Did that really happen?"
How long ago was that? If you did that to someone younger now, who hasn't heard of it, they would probably believe you without asking if it was real. The fact Iran-Contra is real is neither here nor there. What's changed is how people engage with conspiracy theories. We should want people to think critically and ask for evidence.
I'm going to fast forward through the fact that the entirety of the above comment was full of nothing but baseless conspiracy theories pretending that they aren't conspiracy theories and that some other conspiracy theories are the actual conspiracy theories. Own it.
I'm fast forwarding because the comment has completely missed my argument's actual point.
My argument's position is not that governments couldn't do this in theory. My argument's position is that they have no reason to do this in practice. They don't need to make our deaths look like suicides to kill us. They can kill us.
They can kill us and lose no support whatsoever in a fair and free election. And it's way easier than covering it up, because they can use the investigations as a talking point in their rallies without the downside of consequences because there are no consequences. The people still think it's true because they are trapped in information silos. And they all accuse everyone else of having TDS, Trump derangement syndrome. edit: typos
It has not been that way for that long though. They used to lose support if they openly killed people in the streets.
Has Putin lost any support for all the defenestration and underwear poisoning? People used to think dictators would lose support if dictators killed people in the street. The truth is if you control the narrative you can get away with killing people and if you don't you can't get away with doing nothing wrong.