The BBC’s first-ever specialist disinformation and social media reporter, Marianna Spring, has spent the past year down the online conspiracy rabbit hole, investigating the real-world impact of disinformation being shared on social media. What’s it like speaking to the victims and leaders of these online conspiracy networks – and what’s the best approach?

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

The current pandemic is notable for the vast traffic in official and unofficial information and claims. David will offer some personal insights into the challenges of trying to bring some illumination to the statistics about the pandemic, illustrated with some examples of things that have gone fairly well, and communication disasters.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Eliot Higgins explains how his team uncovered the Skripal suspects, linked them to another assassination attempt, uncovered Russia’s secret Novichok programme, exposed the FSB team that poisoned Alexei Navalny, and uncovered a Russian domestic nerve agent assassination programme, from the comfort of their own homes.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Join host Andy Wilson for another live-streamed episode of the skeptical-themed panel show InKredulous.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

For 100 years, a small, secretive group have decided what you can see in UK cinemas, on video and on DVD. Jim Cliff explains the origins and methods of the Board, and offers insights into his time as an examiner, the shift from censorship to classification, and how a cut he requested in ‘Lilo & Stitch’ led to an offshoot of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory almost 20 years later.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

In 1875, a flame-eyed creature picked at the lead in a window pane to let himself in to a remote farmhouse in Cumberland. The Beast of Croglin Grange has entered our folklore as one of England’s very few homegrown vampires. So let’s take a look at the story see if we can work out what really happened.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Denialism has been around for years, but recently Covid denialism and denial of Trump’s election loss have become mainstream. Dr Keith Kahn-Harris will argue that we are now seeing both the triumph of denialism and its end — but will it leave a truth-filled utopia, but something even worse?

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Evolutionary perspectives of mothering create a dilemma. Mothers behave in ways that clearly discount the notion of a maternal instinct, but despite advances in our understanding of parenting, the overwhelming majority of students continue to believe in a maternal instinct. We discuss these ramifications and emphasize the need to explore variation in maternal love.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.

Astronomers have successfully observed a great deal of the Universe’s history, from recording the afterglow of the Big Bang to imaging thousands of galaxies. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe.

This event will be online, on the Skeptics in the Pub Twitch channel.