Journalists and podcast hosts Jon Ronson and Gabriel Gatehouse join Marianna for a special episode of Americast delving deep down the rabbit hole of conspiracies. The trio talk about why America is a breeding ground for conspiracies, how to spot them, and what happens if they’re true. We also look at whether conspiracies and misinformation might affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election and what role artificial intelligence could play in their spread. HOST: • Marianna Spring, disinformation and social media correspondent GUESTS: • Jon Ronson, host of 'Things Fell Apart' • Gabriel Gatehouse, host of 'The Coming Storm' GET IN TOUCH: • Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480 • Email [email protected] • Or use #Americast Find out more about our award-winning “undercover voters” here: bbc.in/3lFddSF. This episode was made by Daniel Wittenberg with Alix Pickles, Natasha Fernandes and Alex Collins. The technical producer was Ben Andrews and the sound designer was David Crackles. The editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.

Louis Theroux interviews Gabriel Gatehouse about the aftermath of the 2021 Capitol riots, QAnon, and the latest twists in the plot to break reality. Producer: Lucy Proctor

When Gabriel Gatehouse is reporting on the aftermath of the presidential election in 2020, and trying to understand the motivations behind QAnon, he comes across people who believe another conspiracy theory. It’s about a laptop which Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, had supposedly left in a computer repair shop in Delaware. The laptop allegedly contains damning information about the Biden family. Gabriel thinks it’s fake news and ignores it at the time. But that is a mistake. The laptop turns out to be real, even if some of the claims about its contents are not. Silicon Valley and perhaps even the FBI seem to have tried to suppress the story, while the mainstream media refused to run it. For some, it is now powerful evidence that the Biden administration, and the entire establishment, is a regime that must be toppled. Producer: Lucy Proctor

As America goes out to vote for the first time since the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election, Gabriel Gatehouse is back in the deep undergrowth of the US political scene, in a bid to understand where the dark energy underpinning the January 6 assault on the Capitol is going now. Some of the energy from the QAnon conspiracy theory about a satanic cabal of paedophiles is morphing into a grassroots political movement against ‘groomers’ – the idea that LGBTQI+ sex educators and trans healthcare advocates are indoctrinating young people into a sexualised culture. The battleground is America’s school boards and the prize could be a galvanised Republican base with a new crusade. At a conference in Miami of thinkers shaping the future ideas of the right, Gabriel finds the issue top of the agenda. And across the country, a slate of candidates linked to QAnon is running for office – how will they fare? Producer: Lucy Proctor

QAnon and the plot to break reality... Gabriel Gatehouse has something to confess. Throughout the making of the series he’s been developing his own conspiracy theory. It’s about a book, called The Sovereign Individual, written by two men who were also pushing stories about the Clintons in the 1990s. Were the people who seeded the myths that led to QAnon involved in a vast conspiracy to break reality, to divide and conquer and divvy up the spoils? Gabriel seeks to understand the book, a favourite amongst the tech billionaires of Silicon Valley. They think a new version of the web, based on crypto and blockchain, will bring about the next step in the societal shift driven by the internet. What would that mean for democracy? Producer: Lucy Proctor