“Conspiracy theories arguably just have slightly different logic and standards of evidence.”But does paying attention to such theories give them legitimacy? “Everybody loves a story with a good plot twist, which is basically what conspiracy theories are,” he wrote in an email. Conspiracy theorists at the time believed Jackson had hired the gunman as a way to drum up sympathy for himself, Mr. Walker said. PhotoAfter the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on June 12, Twitter brimmed with news reports of the carnage. They were “crisis actors” hired to promote the story as a pretext to impose tighter gun restrictions, the theory goes.

Source: New York Times June 28, 2016 12:12 UTC