And thus the problem: There's no objective distinction between a "conspiracy theory" and a legitimate investigation.

So we have one side saying "You're caught up in conspiracy theories!" and the other saying "You're censoring the truth!"

How do you solve that?

You teach effective critical thinking in schools nationwide for a couple of decades.

You encourage empathy for those you disagree with.

You tolerate intolerant people (but not their intolerant views)

You dig deeper and tell everyone what you found. For the laptop story there was nothing to be found.

Verification takes time, when someone dumps a ton of information publicly and exclaims it is true there is no avoiding some people believing it no matter what happens.

If we are afraid about censoring that being transparent about what is censored and verifying it afterwards can help with that.

However I don't think there is a true solve to misinformation. Lies are catchier than the truth after all.

As terms, 'conspiracy theory' and 'fact' both feel loaded today.

I wonder whether reverting to more neutral labelling would held create a less heated dialogue? Founded and unfounded, for example.

I think of the Hunter Biden laptop story as being a lame Swiftboating slimy character assassination that isn't exactly a new thing in politics. Qanon is a different beast altogether because it stokes this really paranoid "they're all against you" mentality that a large portion of the population seems to have been increasingly susceptible to in recent years.

I’d argue that they’re not entirely wrong. The lives and problems of rural Americans are dramatically different than urban Americans, and given the all-or-nothing nature of the system, neither side is well represented when the other has power.

QAnon is obviously garbage, but it’s a symptom of a broken system that can’t effectively represent the entire population, and not just one half.

No? Nobody was saying Hunter Biden ran a pedo ring with abductions and body doubles replacing key national figures.

It's real-world verifiable that Hunter Biden made 600k/yr for several years for a foreign gas company while his dad was VP and involved in pressuring domestic politics in that country.

And so we come back to GP's point: If mainstream media is calling everything that's not politically advantageous for the dems a "conspiracy theory", then they lose credibility. If everything's a conspiracy theory, nothing is.