>I believe that these 'nutjobs' were promoted to the forefront of popular discussion for purposes of sensationalism and to discredit more careful dissenting voices by association.
That just sounds like an unfounded conspiracy theory.
More likely is that extreme statements on social media generate more reactions, which is more engagement, so they get more traction in feeds because that is what social media is optimised to do, irrespective of what the content is.
And these nutjobs routinely invoked the term "lab leak", which organically led to an association in most people's minds between the term "lab leak" and crazy conspiracy theories.
That just sounds like an unfounded conspiracy theory.
More likely is that extreme statements on social media generate more reactions, which is more engagement, so they get more traction in feeds because that is what social media is optimised to do, irrespective of what the content is.
And these nutjobs routinely invoked the term "lab leak", which organically led to an association in most people's minds between the term "lab leak" and crazy conspiracy theories.