There are concerns that, as a country, we have become more sceptical and susceptible to Covid conspiracy theories since Delta arrived on our shores.  

A group called the Disinformation Project has been monitoring disinformation and misinformation since February last year when this all began. 

They found that between August 17 and November 5th these conspiracy theories have been increasing, widening and deepening every week at unprecedented and significant speed.  

The activity includes an increase in the spread of dangerous speech, hateful expression and criminal behaviour.  

One of the researchers with the project, Kate Hannah, told Mike Hosking they look at open-sourced social media posts to look at general trends.  

“There’s a big combination of different motivations - a lot of people are genuinely seeking new information.” 

She said, they can see there’s often a small handful of people making a lot of noise.  

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