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Do we live in a "Golden Age of Conspiracy Theories?" In the last few decades,conspiracy theories have proliferated on the Internet with some havingdangerous real-world consequences. A large contingent of those who participatedin the January 6th attack on the US Capitol fervently believed in the QAnonconspiracy theory. In this work, we study the relationships amongst fiveprominent conspiracy theories (QAnon, COVID, UFO/Aliens, 9/11, and Flat-Earth)and each of their respective relationships to the news media, both authenticnews and misinformation. Identifying and publishing a set of 755 differentconspiracy theory websites dedicated to our five conspiracy theories, we findthat each set often hyperlinks to the same external domains, with COVID andQAnon conspiracy theory websites having the largest amount of sharedconnections. Examining the role of news media, we further find that not only dooutlets known for spreading misinformation hyperlink to our set of conspiracytheory websites more often than authentic news websites but also that thishyperlinking increased dramatically between 2018 and 2021, with the advent ofQAnon and the start of COVID-19 pandemic. Using partial Granger-causality, weuncover several positive correlative relationships between the hyperlinks frommisinformation websites and the popularity of conspiracy theory websites,suggesting the prominent role that misinformation news outlets play inpopularizing many conspiracy theories.

A Golden Age: Conspiracy Theories' Relationship with Misinformation Outlets, News Media, and the Wider Internet