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From the Invasion of Ukraine to the Tree of Life Shooting: Online Conspiracy Theories Pose Real-World Dangers

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MATCH MY GIFT TO FIGHT EXTREMISM

Dear John,

As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, posts began to spread across Twitter that the Kremlin was targeting U.S.-run bioweapon labs. Russia soon amplified those reports as justification for its pending military action.

The problem? The U.S. has no bioweapon labs in Ukraine. The story was completely false and intentionally fabricated as a pretense to war.

This tactic was very familiar to ADL as ADL deals with hateful disinformation like this every day — spread by antisemites, extremists and those who would undermine our democracy. With your help, ADL works around the clock to prevent this kind of dangerous disinformation from spreading across the globe.

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Your gift of $50, $75, $100 or more — which DOUBLES today — allows the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) to remain the leading expert combatting online extremists and the hate and lies they spread.

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DOUBLE MY IMPACT

This isn’t the first time something like this has taken place. We’ve seen antisemitic, racist and antigovernment conspiracy theories drive people to real-world violence. Consider the January 6th, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol encouraged by lies about a stolen election. Or the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, in which the gunman believed Jewish Americans were leading an invasion of refugees who would destroy the white race.

“Conspiracy theories, rampant in the United States, have an unusual power to motivate people to action,” says COE Director of Investigative Research Carla Hill. “Under the right circumstances, such theories can motivate people to violence, especially if the conspiracy theories target specific people, entities or populations.”

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Your support of ADL allows the COE to track these conspiracies to their sources, hold the perpetrators accountable and help social media companies combat extremist ideology on their platforms.

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MAKE MY GIFT GO TWICE AS FAR

The bioweapons lab conspiracy shows us once again how much harm online extremist activity can cause in the real world. It began with a lie told by one Virginia man tied to the extremist ideology QAnon. Then, it was reported on Fox News and ultimately spread by the Russian government as justification for an invasion. The lie was also used to reinforce COVID-19 conspiracy theories in the U.S., further sowing seeds of distrust and fueling the potential for violence.

Please, help ADL continue to vigilantly monitor the dark spaces on the web so we can fight antisemitism and hate online and in our communities with your gift today. A fellow supporter of ADL will match all contributions, up to $200,000.

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Make your gift before July 15 and your impact will double.
Fighting Extremism, Together!

Frederic L. Bloch
Chief Growth Officer
ADL

P.S. The internet lets extremists hide behind a cloak of anonymity as they spread hate and falsehoods. They create multiple accounts to evade attempts by Twitter and other platforms to stop conspiracy theories and harassment. Identifying these bad actors is a difficult job. As Hill said to The Washington Post in their coverage of ADL’s role in the story, “The mixture of truth, and fiction, it’s hard to separate out, and I think that is one of the biggest challenges.”

ADL specializes in that work in a way no other organization can.
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Your gift, which doubles now, helps ADL lead the fight against online hate and extremism.

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