Davos conspiracy theories used to live in the fringes of the internet. Now they have become mainstream CNN Business

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The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos has long been a lightning rod for conspiracy theories. Extremist figures such as Infowars host Alex Jones have reliably used the event to heighten fear and paranoia about sinister schemes allegedly being hatched by “globalists”.

In the past, however, these farcical conspiracy theories have largely been confined to the fringes of the Internet, places like Infowars. But in recent years, that has changed. The radical ideas promoted by people like Jones have gone mainstream, having been popularized by some of the most influential figures in the right-wing media.

Take Glenn Beck for example. The right-wing media personality, who wrote a conspiracy book called “The Great Reset” that echoed the WEF’s 2020 Covid theme, scoffed on Tuesday at the idea of ​​conspiracy theories circulating around the event, while gave oxygen to some of these theories when he interviewed a guest who claimed, without question, that the assembled world leaders “want you to eat insects instead of meat.”

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It’s not just Beck who uses the event to push this fringe rhetoric. New Twitter owner Elon Musk, responding to a conspiracy thread about the meeting in Davos on Sunday, said the “S in ESG,” which stands for the WEF’s “environmental, social and governance” criteria, “stands for Satanic.” (Musk also claimed he was invited to the meeting, but organizers said he was not on the invite list.)

Alex Friedfeld, associate director of the ADL Center on Extremism, told me Tuesday that the use of extreme rhetoric and endorsement of conspiracy theories by leading voices on the right has led to the outlandish claims coming to many more people than before.

“The fact is that these conspiracies have bounced around in more fringe parts of the Internet,” Friedfeld said. “But when you have people like Tucker Carlson or Glenn Beck, they start normalizing these conspiracies, they expose millions more people to these ideas.”

In particular, Friedfeld singled out “The Great Reset” conspiracy theories, noting that the term has “become divorced” at this point from its Covid origins in 2020 and become “a broad brand for to conspiracies” about how global elites are planning to use the masses for their own benefit. Friedfeld said that in particular, the use of the term “The Great Reset” by leading figures is cause for alarm because it can send people down a rabbit hole.

“You go look for whatever version they’re talking about on Fox News, and suddenly you’re exposed to all these other conspiracies that fall under the same umbrella,” Friedfeld explained.

The Associated Press’ Sophia Tulp reported this week that use of “The Great Reset” has steadily increased on Fox News. Tulp said the term was mentioned on the right-wing talk channel 60 times in 2022, compared to 30 mentions in 2021 and 20 in 2020. Tulp added that it was mentioned more on Carlson’s show and Laura Ingraham.

The danger of conspiracy theories has not been lost on Davos attendees. In a Tuesday panel moderated by Brian Stelter, AG Sulzberger, editor of The New York Times, described misinformation as one of the most pressing problems facing society.

“I think if you look at this issue of misinformation, I think it fits basically all the other big challenges we face as a society, and particularly the most existential of them,” Sulzberger said. “So disinformation and in the broader mix of disinformation, conspiracy, propaganda, clickbait … the broader mix of bad information that is corrupting the information ecosystem, what it attacks is trust.”

“And once you see that trust go down, what you see is society starts to fracture, and so you see people fracture along tribal lines and, you know, that immediately undermines pluralism.” , Sulzberger added. “And undermining pluralism is probably the most dangerous thing that can happen to a democracy. So I really think that if you’re spending this week thinking about the health of democracies and democratic erosion, I think it’s really important to get back to where you started.”