[ryandrake]

This is one of the ways people can go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. They think they "discovered for themselves" some secret truth that "the elite" or "the experts" don't want them to know. Then they find a community of similarly-awakened people who lower their guards even more and point them to other "alternative truths" that they can go DiscoverForThemselves™ too.

Probably the same psychology behind those obnoxious AI-generated ads that say things like "Here's the secret about gut bacteria that doctors don't want you to know!"

[duwease]

This is exactly the reason QAnon took off. It evolved from ARG-ish games without the goal of being persuasive about real-world things. But a participant back then realized how people enjoyed figuring out the 'puzzle', and how to lead them to the conclusion without telling them, and once you add political agendas we got what we have today.