Why children peddle conspiracy theories

Teenagers today are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, and that is a very bad thing indeed. This was the unmistakeable message conveyed by a story in the Times yesterday. Citing a report published by the Commission into Countering Online Conspiracies in Schools, it related how ‘conspiracy theories are rife in classrooms’. Young people, we’re told, are more inclined to trust social media influencers than the government when it came to news sources and forming their views of the world. Teachers ‘need urgent support’ to prevent children ‘falling down rabbit holes online’ and succumbing to ‘misinformation’ they discover therein.

Of course it’s worrying to discover that a greater proportion of 11 to 18-year-olds distrust information from the government (35 per cent) than they do influencers (29 per cent), or that sixty-five per cent see no harm in spreading the theory that humans never landed on the moon.