QAnon conspiracy theorists were quick to declare Thursday’s shooting at Perry High School in Iowa to be a “false flag” event, claiming that the “Deep State” orchestrated the event as a distraction from the release of documents on Wednesday pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein. The claim of a false flag event — a common assertion among conspiracy theorists in the aftermath of mass shootings and other high-profile events — reveals the degree to which reality has been fractured in American society and the consequences with which we must now live. It also provides a window into the conspiratorial world of right-wing ideologues and influencers, who now occupy a role in the information ecosystem devoted to assimilating new information into the alternate reality they’ve sold their followers.

Caroline Orr Bueno is an American social and behavioral sciences researcher specializing in disinformation networks.