WHEN we think about a conspiracy theory – assuming it is one we don’t ourselves believe – it is easy to be dismissive. Why should we care if a few misguided people think the world is flat or the government is covering up evidence of aliens? Conspiracy theories feel like a niche problem, affecting the ignorant, that could be fixed with a fact check here and an algorithm tweak there.
The reality is very different. Millions of people worldwide have come to believe aspects of QAnon – a conspiracy theory that, when it began in 2017, claimed that then US president…