Erik Strand, 16.07.2025
John Færseth is a Norwegian author who has written several books and articles on alternative circles and conspiracy theories. One of his books is KonspiraNorge, about conspiracy theories in Norway. On March 18, 2020, Færseth got published a debate article on NRK Ytring, a debate forum belonging to the Norwegian state channel NRK. As additional information I choose to mention that Didrik Sødelind on March 18, 2020, chose retweeting Færseth’s tweet where Færseth linked to his debate article.
Færseth’s debate article had the telling title “Close the door for the conspiracy theorists”. In his debate article, Færseth wrote that for most of his life had been in favour of near total freedom of speech, even for nazis and holocaust deniers. He had, however, found one group of people that had to be silenced – conspiracy theorists. Few days after Norway’s covid 19 lockdown, Færseth introduces the reader to several conspiracy theories about the spread of covid 19 that were available on the Internet, as well as some thoughts about the situation that strictly spoken did not belong to the cathegory ‘conspiracy theories’. Færseth’s message was that these theories were dangerous in the present situation and had to be stopped.
Færseth stressed that he did not propose a ban or punishment for this kind of conspiracy theories. But as he wrote: “But Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other platforms should be responsible and close down these accounts, or at least remove posts.”
If one demands that the mentioned platforms either close accounts or at least remove posts, chances are that they choose the first-mentioned approach – closing down the entire account. Evaluating the plethora of posts is extremely labour-demanding. And if we take a look at what exists of censorship done by social media companies, such a guess is quite plausible. One can for example read this article about several alternative media that have got their social media account closed.
For further background on John Færseth, one can try Google translate on the following articles in Norwegian:
10.06.2023. John Færseth har drevet hvitvasking av nazistene i Ukraina siden 2015
04.04.2021. Problemet med John Færseth
24.04.2021. John Færseths lettvintheter om Russland og Ukraina
Fampo 