Even before most Americans woke up Tuesday morning to news of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, wild conspiracy theories about what supposedly had “really” happened were running rampant online.
The claims ranged from a cyber-attack or a ship captain impaired by side effects from Covid-19 vaccines being responsible for the crash – to claims that Israel, or even the Obamas had something to do with the bridge’s collapse.
All of these claims are entirely baseless. Officials investigating the crash said early on that there was no indication it was a deliberate act.
But that didn’t stop conspiracy theories from spreading rapidly across the internet, generating tens of millions of views on social media even as dive teams crews were conducting search and rescue operations. In just a few hours an entire alternate reality, devoid of facts, had been created around the bridge’s collapse.
It is a stark reminder of the erosion of trust among Americans in major institutions, particularly government and media, and the perverse online incentive structures that reward the sharing of misinformation.
Read more about the torrent of conspiracy theories that spread online following the collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge.
