‘It’s all a hoax!’ Boston Bombings and “Crazy Conspiracy Theories”

Crisis actors faking injury at the Boston Bombings? No schoolchildren murdered at Sandy Hook? Holographic planes flew into the World Trade Center? “Where’s all the blood?!” Conspiracy theorists come in for a lot of ridicule, often unfairly, but the alarmingly high number of hits and airtime some recent choice conspiracy theories have received has even us backing away slowly and wondering just what is going on.

On this week’s show, we talked about the idea of “government actors” and “fakery” at “terror attacks”, including the recent killing of a British soldier in Woolwich, London, which some claim was staged and no one really died “because there was not enough blood”, echoing the claims made about Jeff Bauman at the Boston Marathon finish line.

Are such ideas deliberately promoted to sow disinformation and discredit, by association, anyone attempting to analyse the hard data?