Why Conspiracy Theories Spread — Revisited 2026
People tend to deeply believe in conspiracy theories and love to spread them. I have always wondered why conspiracy theories have such great power. The fact that some famous conspiracy-spreading celebrities exploit these notorious theories to make a fortune and exert influence on the public makes me feel more upset. I sometimes doubt their motivation — perhaps just to make a living, perhaps to be famous. After all, this route to fame relies more on live performance and emotional expression, which is not as demanding of time and effort as starting a company or working hard to earn a fortune. I think a Chinese proverb describes this phenomenon accurately: they are either too foolish or too wicked, only these two possibilities.
Several reasons conspiracy theories spread so fast and so far:
First, sensational news spreads more quickly and gets more clicks than objective news. People are likely to spread horrible and shocking news to warn others to get away from such dangers or to band together against them — almost an instinct in human DNA. However, most news, especially fact-only news, doesn’t get a big reaction. Such news cannot be spread fast and far. Meanwhile, those who first produce these conspiracy theories are framed as whistleblowers and saviors.
Second, conspiracy theories are much easier than the truth. Take global warming. Most conspiracies still have their deductions, arguments, and conclusions. Conspiracy theorists declare: “Because Texas is getting colder and colder, global warming is just a lie.” It’s one sentence, and it gets the point across. But the truth needs to say: “Global warming is about climate rather than weather, and it could happen in the next few decades or even at the end of the 21st century, not now. Global warming is about the whole Earth instead of any specific area, so somewhere cooling and somewhere warming in different regions can co-exist.” It takes three or four sentences to explain, and people still need to look up more information to comprehend.
We need to admit that the education level is very imbalanced — not only within a country but also globally. Most people right now haven’t had the chance to learn the ability to think comprehensively, be open to other opinions, compare information from different sources, give up their original opinions when they are convinced by better ones, and arrive at an independent thinking system. So the issue of conspiracy theories still has a long way to go.
Revisited 2026 — what I’d add now.
Five years on, the structural diagnosis still holds — sensational > objective, short narrative > complex narrative, and the training of independent thought remains scarce. But there are two things 2021-me hadn’t seen clearly:
(1) The multiplier effect of short-video and algorithmic distribution is far larger than I’d then imagined. Short video has lowered the threshold at which “sensational” wins — three-minute videos compressed to 30-second slices, emotional density continuously rewarded by the recommendation algorithm. Rational narrative is structurally disadvantaged.
(2) Large language models are both an amplifier and, potentially, personal lie-detectors. LLMs can generate misinformation (amplifier) and assist verification (lie-detector). Where they land depends on whether the user has formed an audit habit — and the audit habit is itself the most load-bearing piece of the “independent thinking system” 2021-me named. I’d now say the antidote to conspiracy theory is no longer simply “raising education levels” but “an almost pre-rational, daily training that makes verification a reflex.” Tools can help with that, but tools won’t take that step for you.
Looking back, 2021-me had the right structural lens but missed the technical amplifier variable. Still, the headline holds: the truth lives in the long tail, not in headline news. That is the line from this old post I am most willing to preserve.