Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cryptica 1783 days ago
There is a theory that the term 'conspiracy theory' and the stigma around it was invented by government agencies to discredit unsavoury leaked information and to discredit whistleblowers. This category allows information to be mixed in with obvious misinformation to taint the reputation of the whole category so that status-oriented people would be primed to distrust the entire category.

A similar approach can be used to discredit anything.