The story of Paul Pelosi being attacked was fake—a false flag operation!1 And the January 6 attack on the Capitol building? Such “false flag conspiracy theories” (FFCTs) are not uncommon in some subcultures in the United States and represent a subset of conspiracy theories in general. Specifically, “a false flag operation referred to a military force or a ship flying another country’s flag for the purposes of deception.”9 As PolitiFact’s Louis Jacobson and Bill McCarthy explain9:For generations, governments have mounted false flag operations, in which they justify military action by deceptively accusing an enemy of a violent act. However, actual false flags plotted in recent history are outnumbered by dubious conspiracy theories that label real, verifiable crisis events as “false flags.”It is clearly important to distinguish an actual false flag operation from a false flag conspiracy theory. Why do false flag conspiracy theories follow mass shootings?

Source: Washington Post March 07, 2023 16:42 UTC