The intrusion of paranoid ideology that Alden observed in her moms’ group is part of a broader pattern that has appeared in online parenting communities since the pandemic began. Moderators in several different parts of the country, who were in charge of groups ranging in size from roughly 10,000 to 40,000 mothers, told me about a dramatic uptick in posts that refer to outlandish plots by the government, celebrities, and even scientists to control citizens. Moderators—who are responsible for removing posts that violate groups’ policies around misinformation—are finding themselves scrambling to keep up with the influx. Katy Strang, who moderates a moms’ group in Camarillo, California, told me that before March, she only occasionally had to remove a post. These days, she removes 30 to 50 posts every week. “It has been infuriating—the amount of misinformation, conspiracies,” she told me.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/the-terrifying-story-of-how-qanon-infiltrated-moms-groups/

In a moment, she realized that a disturbingly large number of people in the loosely defined health and wellness community, one whose members have already proven themselves over the years to be remarkably susceptible to unverified and refuted claims on everything from vaccines to toxins to supplements, were quickly being radicalized online.

https://jezebel.com/eat-pray-conspiracy-how-the-wellness-world-embraced-1845066668

People espousing delusional bullshit as fact should not be given a platform. They should be called the delusional fools that they are. No matter what side of the political spectrum they are on.

We are seeing the result of decades of coddling the ignorant and delusional and treating them as if their delusions were just as deserving of respect as the findings of professional scientists.