Interesting article and quite apt considering some of them mock the very idea that being anti vaccine is classed as a conspiracy theory when, as this clearly shows, it's often the gateway to other conspiracy theories. I mean, you only have to look at the CT and vaccine threads here to see there's clearly a link. I doubt there are many that only stick to one thread, but yeah carry on taking the piss that there's a link.
The article shows anti vaccine views are often the first step. I suppose they feel slightly alienated and then naturally want to seek out people who share their anti vaccination views and some of those people will be more into CTs and hence introduce them to more - through YouTube videos, Twitter messages, articles to blogs or sites that appear genuine but are often a front for CTs (I linked an example here recently). Obviously I'm not suggesting that all anti vaccine people end up turning to extremist views.
There's definitely a massive amount of hypocrisy, though. Here are a few examples (they're made up quotes by the way, it's just easier to illustrate. They're very much based on the many comments I've read all over the internet, though.):
- "You can't make me wear a mask! It should be solely my choice, I can say I'm exempt and no one should challenge me."
- "I still see lots of people wearing masks. They don't work - they should take them off."
- "No one should make me take any vaccine - my body, my choice - and no one should criticise me for exercising my freedom of choice."
- "I can't believe people are still taking vaccines. None of them are needed or safe, they should be banned."
- "They take the piss out of us because they don't understand and they're being defensive. They can't be happy if they're taking the piss."
- "Lol, trust the science
, the sheep are so stupid.
"
So they want the freedom to make their own decisions and don't want to be criticised for those choices (which is fine) but they think it's fine to tell other people they're wrong when those people exercise their own freedom of choice and make a difference decision to them (not fine).