Conspiracy theories take off after global IT crash

From fearmongering about a looming “World War III” to false narratives linking a cabal of global elite to a cyber attack, a torrent of online conspiracy theories took off Friday after a major IT crash.

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Airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions were engulfed in turmoil after the crash, which was the result of a faulty software update to an anti-virus program operating on Microsoft Windows.

The proliferation of internet-breaking conspiracy theories on social media platforms illustrates the new normal of information chaos after a major world event.

The outage gave way to a swirl of evidence-free posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, that peddled an apocalyptic narrative: the world was under attack by a nefarious force.

“I read somewhere once that WW3 (World War III) would be mostly a cyber war,” one user wrote on X.