COINTELPRO’s tactics seeded paranoia across later conspiracy communities.
Evidence
In a way, the suspicions felt by Cutts—an apparently levelheaded person—reveal the profound and continuing legacy of the US government’s tactics of disinformation. COINTELPRO was, after all, a disinformation campaign created by the FBI to disrupt and discredit American activist groups. The fact that UFO researchers—and Pizzagaters, and every other conspiracy community—are so paranoid about plants and saboteurs in their ranks shows just how well that program worked to destabilize many different kinds of dialogue and research. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 856
Categorization
- XREF: A causal mechanism link: state deception training its targets to distrust everything, resonating with Milgrom/Bernstein work on reputation institutions and trust more generally in the reader’s non-fiction catalog. — connects to: Fear of invisible government manipulation drives false flag conspiracy theories. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 351; State propagandists, bots, and amateur conspiracy theorists form reinforcing alliances. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 396; Claiming surveillance without evidence diminishes real COINTELPRO harm. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 870 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Fear of invisible government manipulation drives false flag conspiracy theories.
#expands(0.82) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 351 - Claiming surveillance without evidence diminishes real COINTELPRO harm.
#responds-to(0.80) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 870 - State propagandists, bots, and amateur conspiracy theorists form reinforcing alliances.
#expands(0.75) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 396