UK social media users: conspiracy theories about the Manchester Arena bombing 2022

According to a survey conducted in October 2022, 44 percent of respondents who received a great deal or a fair amount of their news from social media platform Telegram said that they thought it was definitely or probably true that the Manchester Arena terror attack in 2017 involved crisis actors. Overall, one-third of those who used TikTok for news also thought that there were people involved in the bombing that pretended to be injured or killed. For the overall population, 14 percent of people thought that crisis actors were involved in the attack, showing a rise in conspiracy theories among users who rely on social media for news and information.