Choose your reality: Trust wanes, conspiracy theories rise

When that trust breaks down, polarisation and anxiety increases, creating opportunities for people pushing their own 'alternative facts.' — Fake news vector created by pch.vector - www.freepik.com

Daniel Charles Wilson believes the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, were an inside job. The war in Ukraine is "totally scripted” and Covid-19 is "completely fake.” The Boston Marathon bombing? Mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas? "Crisis actors,” he says.

Wilson, a 41-year-old from London, Ontario, has doubts about free elections, vaccines and the Jan 6 insurrection, too. He accepts little of what has happened in the past 20 years and cheerfully predicts that someday, the internet will make everyone as distrustful as he is.