The only real debunking I've ever done was to the contrail beliefs of a former co-worker in around 2009/10. I'd never heard the chemtrail spiel before that occasion but it was an amalgamation of what I now recognize as the usual talking points. That particular occasion was conversational, typical small talk that occurs on a work break and was non-confrontational and even friendly considering how diametrically opposed the two of us were.
However, I find that when friends and family members on Facebook share or like articles supporting various CT's or political viewpoints that I disagree with, my inclination is to roll my eyes and keep scrolling. Do any of you have this experience often? Is it a "go along to get along" situation or just an unwillingness to wade into the potential morass knowing that noone's mind will really be changed?
My dad has an old friend from his youth who he has just gotten back in touch with via email. They've been going at it back and forth for about a year. Every day, my dad gets about 6 messages from this friend. The topics range from the NWO to 9/11 hoax 'evidence' to 'Obama is a gay man/Muslim/socialist/lizard' stuff, with Fukushima being the thing he sends over most now.
About six months ago, my dad had another old friend over. I took out my camera and took pictures of the two of them as they giggled and told stories and talked. My dad told his email friend and his email friend requested the photos. Dad, bless his heart, isn't the most adept at transferring photos from my little camera to his computer, nonetheless attaching them. I decided to keep things simple and do it from my email. I sent them over, the email friend said thank you and I went to bed.
Next morning I wake up and my inbox is full of all manner of bunk. Twelve messages in a single night, one of which contained six hours of 'shocking documentary' footage on why a certain religious group owns Hollywood. Additionally, there were three emails about Obama's secret Islamic sex lair or some such garbage, two on WTC7, four on Fukushima, one on vaccines, and one containing a video of his cat (my dad told him that I like cats).
I sent him a response saying thank you for the cat video, but I'm not interested in the other things. He apologized and all was quiet for a few days.
Then it started again and I asked him a bit more firmly this time if he wouldn't mind not sending them. They stopped and then arrived again. I'm a full-time college student. I was itching to debunk his claims but didn't have time. Dad tried and it didn't work. I asked him one more time. It didn't work, so I set up a special folder for his emails to go to and got to work.
Every week or so, I added his email to a newsletter list for some website that wasn't about something he cared about. At first I planned to do scientific ones, ones based on human rights for the groups of people he theorizes about. I decided against it because I didn't want him to get emails from, say, a LGBT dating service that he could then harrass. I decided on irritating or weird ones instead, just to play it safe.
I started out with a scrapbooking one that promised two emails a day for only the most scrap-obsessed internet user.
Then, I chose one dedicated to model trains. Three emails a week.
I put him on a Minneapolis dog walking group's mailing list next. An email a day. He lives in Southern California.
A pecan farm in Georgia. An email every Thursday, detailing the newest pecan news.
A cruise line, an email about every three days.
A Peter Frampton fan club. Probably not as frequent, but I couldn't resist.
Sephora.
You get the picture. My dad gets far fewer emails now, mostly because his friend has to delete all the ones that he is subscribed to in order to reply.
I like to think that in some small way I've stopped the spreading of bunk, while raising awareness of the latest pecan harvesting technology, acid-free paper, makeup and Twin Cities dog walking routes.