Nearly 900 years of history and culture went up in flames on April 15 when the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire, and needless to say that the subsequent 24 or so hours afterwards have been a bit emotional.
There has been an outpouring of support as many people have pledged to give what ever aid they can (some in the form of writing a check for many millions) in helping to restore Notre-Dame, including billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault (aka Salma Hayek’s husband) and France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault.
But in the midst of all the love that’s being shown for Paris, there’s also been deluge of conspiracy theories claiming that the Notre-Dame fire is a hoax.
Yeah.
While no official cause for the fire has been named yet, it is reported that investigators are treating it as an accident, However, this hasn’t stopped hoaxes, conspiracies, actual fake news, and disinformation campaigns from quickly spreading across the internet.
Now we don’t condone that sort of stuff here at GOAT but for the purposes of keeping everyone informed on what to keep an eye out for regarding all the hoaxes going around, here are just some of the most ridiculous theories and fake news articles going around regarding the fire:
- InfoWars (ugh) claiming the fire was deliberately started
- Far-righters stoking anger by claiming all the people who responded to videos of the fire with “smiley faces” are Arabic
- A fake CNN account claiming the fire was an act of terrorism
- People trying to link an unrelated 2016 event to the fire
- People sharing a fake video around of someone shouting “allahu akbar” while Notre-Dame was burning
It’s honestly quite ridiculous that something like this is even happening and it brings up a very important question that we must ask: what is it about conspiracies that make people disregard common sense?
A little is an understatement.
Plenty of studies have gone into just how people get hooked on hoaxes and the lovely folk over at The Conversation have put it all together in a nice little article (which you can read right here).
To sum it all up very quickly, people are suckered into believing conspiracy theories due to:
- People being annoyingly stubborn in their beliefs and their caveman instinct of imposing structure to things they don’t quite understand (hence the obsession with patterns)
- Peer pressure because people wanna look cool and stuff to their friends
- Getting facts and myths mixed up, especially when reading things that attempt to debunk myths
No, there isn’t. There just isn’t.
There’s a worrying trend of ridiculous hoaxes coming up whenever a major world event happens and it is something that needs to be nipped in the bud right now. Notre-Dame going up in flames was just an awful sight and what we need right now is sympathy and empathy, not disinformation and fake news.
So to all those pushing idiotic conspiracies and hoaxes about the fire, keep it to yourselves and go back into your basement. Those are not welcome here or anywhere, thanks.