'We’ve gotten to the point where information is actually killing people.” While 9/11 united much of America in grief and anger, conspiracy theories about what happened that day uncovered a well of distrust. Twenty years on, the skepticism has metastasized.
Polls show belief in 9/11 conspiracy theories peaked in the years immediately following the attack, then subsided. Repeated surveys show a small percentage of Americans continue to harbor doubts about the official explanation of the attacks.
The first known 9/11 conspiracy theory was put forward only hours after the attack, when an American software engineer emailed a post to an internet forum questioning whether the towers were toppled by a controlled detonation.Thousands of videos focus on conspiracy theories.
Bogus claims about the Sept. 11 attacks never posed the threat now ascribed to misinformation about COVID-19 or the 2020 U.S. elections. But even proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories say questions about what happened primed the pump for the distrust and anxiety behind today’s conspiracy theories. “Usually it is the case that the people who feel they are being excluded from power who are committed to conspiracy theories,” Fenster says. “What’s different this time is that it was the party that was in power — the party that had the White House — that was the main broadcaster of conspiracy theories.”
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