After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News (2020) on Netflix

Plot summary

Disinformation is the deliberate spread of falsehoods, and the documentary surveys how such campaigns work on social media and what they do to public life. It covers conspiracy theories including the Obama birther claims, Jade Helm, Seth Rich and Pizzagate, along with some of the major and minor figures involved. False news is not new, the film notes, but information technology now amplifies it, and it grows out of distrust and exploitation. The film also shows two conspiracy theorists creating and promoting a theory about Robert Mueller while he served as special counsel. Dash-cam footage follows Edgar Maddison Welch as he drives from North Carolina toward Comet Ping Pong, a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, with a high powered gun, intending to stop what he believed was a child sex slave ring. The Pizzagate theory had spread on Reddit and 4chan.