Consuming conspiracy theories erodes trust in democratic institutions, while conspiracy beliefs demotivate democratic participation, posing a potential threat to democracy. The proliferation of social media, especially the emergence of numerous alternative platforms with minimal moderation, has greatly facilitated the dissemination and consumption of conspiracy theories. Nevertheless, there remains a dearth of knowledge concerning the origin and evolution of specific conspiracy theories across different platforms. This study aims to address this gap through a large-scale, cross-platform examination of the genesis of new conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein. Through a (semi-) automated content analysis conducted on a distinctive dataset comprising N = 8,020,314 Epstein-related posts posted on both established platforms ( Twitter, Reddit) and alternative platforms ( Gab and 4Chan), we demonstrate that conspiracy theories emerge early and influence public discourse well in advance of reports from established media sources. Our data shows that users of the studied platforms immediately turn to conspirational explanations, exhibiting skepticism towards the official representation of events. Especially on alternative platforms, this skepticism swiftly transformed into unwarranted conspiracy theorizing, partly bolstered by references to alternative news media sources. The present study shows how conspirational explanations thrive in low information environments and how alternative media plays a role in turning rational skepticism into unwarranted conspiracy theories.

中文翻译：

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怀疑的种子：审视另类社交和新闻媒体对阴谋论诞生的作用

相信阴谋论会削弱对民主制度的信任，而阴谋论则会削弱民主参与的积极性，对民主构成潜在威胁。社交媒体的激增，尤其是众多具有最低限度节制的替代平台的出现，极大地促进了阴谋论的传播和消费。然而，对于不同平台上特定阴谋论的起源和演变仍然缺乏了解。本研究旨在通过对围绕杰弗里·爱泼斯坦之死的新阴谋论的起源进行大规模、跨平台的调查来解决这一差距。通过对一个独特的数据集进行（半）自动内容分析，该数据集包含在既定平台（Twitter、Reddit）和替代平台（Gab 和 4Chan）上发布的 N = 8,020,314 条与爱泼斯坦相关的帖子，我们证明阴谋论很早就出现并产生影响公众讨论早于既定媒体来源的报道。我们的数据显示，所研究平台的用户立即转向阴谋论解释，对事件的官方表述表现出怀疑。特别是在其他平台上，这种怀疑迅速转变为毫无根据的阴谋论，部分原因是对其他新闻媒体来源的引用。本研究展示了阴谋论解释如何在低信息环境中蓬勃发展，以及替代媒体如何在将理性怀疑论转变为毫无根据的阴谋论方面发挥作用。