Since, to my continued annoyance, there is no Tech/Internet form, I suppose I'll post this here.
Kate Middleton, Britney Spears and the Online Trolls Doubting Their Existence
Whether it is just for kicks or propelled by genuine doubt, the unsupported claims about celebrities and public figures keep gaining traction online.
By Tiffany Hsu
The princess joins a host of other celebrities and public figures — from President Biden to Elon Musk — whom scores of online detectives have declared in recent months to be clones, body doubles, A.I.-generated avatars or otherwise not the living, breathing people they are.
For many of the people pushing the falsehoods, it is harmless fun: casual gumshoeing that lasts only a few clicks, a bonanza for meme generators. Others, however, spend “countless hours” on the pursuit, following other skeptics down rabbit holes and demanding that celebrities provide proof of life.
Whatever the motivation, what lingers is an urge to question reality, misinformation experts say. Lately, despite extensive and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, the same sense of suspicion has contaminated conversations about elections, race, health care and climate.
Much of the internet now disagrees on basic facts, a phenomenon exacerbated by intensifying political polarization, distrust of institutions such as news and academia as well as the rise of artificial intelligence and other technologies that can warp people’s perception of truth.
In such an environment, celebrity conspiracy theories became a way to take control of “a really precarious, scary and unsettling moment,” said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor of media ethics and digital platforms at the University of Oregon.
“The darkness that is characterizing our politics is going to insert itself into even the more lighthearted articulations of speculation,” she said. “It just speaks to a sense of unease in the world.”
For the whole article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/business/media/kate-middleton-britney-spears-rumors-misinformation.html