This is the Google Translate of Mick's Interview...
Several fans sites conspiracy theories deny that jihadists circles were behind the attack against Charlie Hebdo and seek to place the blame to countries like the United States or Israel. Or outright to the French state itself.
The appearance of theories "paranoid" of this nature does not unduly surprised Mick West, English programmer based in California that manages several years a blog, Metabunk, seeking to counteract this type of discourse.
The profile of the attackers, the fact that the French weekly was a long time in the crosshairs of the fundamentalists because of his drawings on Islam, he was regularly threatened and had been attacked there a few years enough largely, he said, to convince the vast majority of people of the origins of the attack.
"But there is still a small but noisy group of people who consider that everything is relayed in the media is false," notes Mr. West.
Those who defend conspiracy theories will look, he explains in an interview to highlight elements that seem incongruous in the "official version" in order to "flatten their subjective interpretation of events."
In the case of the shooting in the United States in the city of Sandy Hook in December 2012, no videos, or the small size of the shooter were discussed to try to disable the version of the authorities, reports the blogger. In the attack at Boston Marathon, the "salon experts" claimed that there was "too much blood, not enough blood" or that "the blood was too red."
The issue of blood returns for several days on the attack against Charlie Hebdo, says West. Conspiracy websites, he says, claim that there is not one in the video showing a police officer shot dead in the street.
A form of "religion"
For some people, the use of conspiracy theories is almost a form of substitution "religion". "They need to be able to give meaning to life, to understand what is happening, and the evocation of plots gives them answers," he notes.
The followers of these theories, says West, are usually very suspicious of governments, a position reinforced by the fact that states do not always show a perfect connection with their activities transparent.
Pierre Trudel, Professor of Public Law at the University of Montreal which monitors social media, notes that online communication allows individuals who believe detect a conspiracy to quickly find items and texts confirming their vision and exchange about it.
"People fall into line according to their beliefs and convictions [...]. They convince them as in the sects, "he says.
Any external challenge their vision is warmly aggressively, says West, who is regularly accused of being in the pay of the US government or other states.
Conspiracy theories are particularly popular with young people, says the blogger, who hopes to help through his writings, to see clearly.
Many of them, he says, are "influenced people [...] that could easily accommodate new ideas but are also able to give up when they are shown to be false."