Speaker: Josh Robbins - Journalist at Which? Magazine

After writing an article about the online world of Madeleine McCann conspiracy theorists, Josh Robbins (not unexpectedly) received a smattering of abuse on Twitter. At a glance, his detractors appeared to be disproportionately engaged with far-right material on social media, provoking the question: Are Britain First supporters more likely than others to believe that Madeleine McCann was murdered by her parents?

He used Twitter data to survey the overlap between people following a range of political organisations in the UK with people following a variety of conspiracy theory accounts. The numbers proved his hunch to be right, but also shone some interesting light on the conspiracy beliefs of people following other non-mainstream groups, including Momentum, the Jeremy Corbyn support machine.

Here he discusses the project from its inception through to the results.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception in the Alison Richard Building foyer.

This event is being hosted by the Conspiracy & Democracy research project, a five-year project funded by The Leverhulme Trust and based at CRASSH. For further details about the event, please contact the project administrator, Rachael Taylor, here.