This combination of pictures created on April 25, 2023 shows logos of online platforms, applications, social media and technology and IT companies of Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Wikipedia, Pinterest, AliExpress, Facebook, Meta, Apple app store ,Snapchat, Linkedin, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok and fashion retailer Zalando. Advertising Read more From fearmongering about a looming "World War III" to false narratives linking a cabal of global elite to a cyberattack, a torrent of online conspiracy theories took off Friday after a major IT crash. Airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions were engulfed in turmoil after the crash, one of the biggest in recent years that was the result of a faulty software update to an antivirus program operating on Microsoft Windows.
The proliferation of internet-breaking conspiracy theories on social media platforms -- many of which have removed guardrails that once contained the spread of misinformation -- illustrates the new normal of information chaos after a major world event. The outage gave way to a swirl of evidence-free posts on X, the Elon Musk-owned site formerly known as Twitter, that peddled an apocalyptic narrative: The world was under attack by a nefarious force. Watch moreGlobal cyber outage grounds flights, hits banks, telecoms, media "I read somewhere once that ww3 (World War III) would be mostly a cyber war," one user wrote on X.
The IT crash also stirred up an unfounded theory that the World Economic Forum -- long a magnet for wild falsehoods -- had plotted a global cyberattack. To..
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