Plus: How a COVID-election conspiracy theory caught fire, and a conviction for Ray Epps in insurrection. It’s the week in extremism from USA TODAY.

As conspiracy theories linking imaginary government COVID lockdown measures to imaginary election fraud resurge on social media, the platforms are doing little to nothing to tamp them down, according to a new study provided exclusively to USA TODAY. Meanwhile, a double-murder case in Indiana takes a strange twist when the defense claims a white supremacist Odinist cult was involved. And a West Virginia white supremacist pleads guilty to threatening jurors in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial.

It’s the week in extremism.

COVID election conspiracy theories spike on social media

A conspiracy theory caught fire on social media in recent weeks. It went something like this: COVID infections are spiking, so the federal government will implement new lockdowns. Then, it will force people to vote by mail – which will in turn be used to throw the 2024 election. 

A new study by the research agency Advance Democracy analyzed how the theory, which has been thoroughly debunked, has spread. We examined the study and pressed the social media companies on its findings Tuesday.

• The study counted approximately 32,480 posts about COVID and mail-in ballots on X, formerly known as Twitter, alone. That’s the highest monthly total since November 2020.
• The theories are being spread almost completely unchecked, Advance Democracy found. The researchers found only one post among tens of thousands that was flagged by a social media platform’s fact-checkers, and X appears to have abandoned its efforts to correct or remove election disinformation altogether. 
• “COVID denialism has proven to be a very powerful uniting force among certain political movements,” Brian Hughes, associate director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University told USA TODAY.

Indiana double-murder defendant claims white supremacist Odinists killed two young girls

Attorneys for a defendant charged with the murder of two young girls in Indiana in 2017 filed a bombshell memo in court this week claiming prosecutors ignored crucial evidence that suggests the victims were killed in a human sacrifice by a white supremacist sect that claims to practice an ancient Nordic religion.

• The 136-page memorandum, filed Monday alleges that the search warrant executed on defendant Richard Allen’s home Oct. 13, 2022 was based on faulty probable cause. It also claims that Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, were murdered in a ritual killing by several people, not Allen, the Lafayette Journal & Courier, part of the USA Today Network reported. 
• Odinism is an offshoot of ancient Nordic paganism that has been co-opted by white supremacists across the United States and elsewhere. 
• Numerous murders and several acts of terrorism have been committed by self-proclaimed white supremacist Odinists in recent years.
• The defense attorneys argue that prosecutors in the Indiana case suppressed evidence linking the double-murder to Odinism, including the presence of sticks placed at the scene of the crime to resemble runes, which are common in Odinist symbology.

White supremacist threatened Pittsburgh synagogue shooting jury

A West Virginia white supremacist pleaded guilty this week to threatening members of the jury hearing the case of another white supremacist who attacked a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, killing 11 congregants.

• Hardy Carroll Lloyd targeted the jurors because of their actual or perceived Jewish faith, the Associated Press reported.
• Lloyd  was arrested Aug. 10 and charged with making threats on social media and sending threatening emails during the trial of Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. He faces up to six years in prison.
• Bowers was sentenced to death last month. 

Statistic of the week: One

That’s how many misdemeanor charges former Marine Ray Epps pleaded guilty to this week for his actions on Jan. 6. 

Epps rose to infamy as the man seen on video urging Jan. 6 demonstrators to go to the Capitol. That put him at the center of a far-right conspiracy theory claiming he was working for the FBI as a federal plant at the insurrection, tasked with convincing people to commit insurrection. For some on the far right, Epps was some kind of proof that the riot wasn’t caused by Trump supporters, but by the feds. 

Epps and public officials both denied the claim, but it persisted as some influencers asked, in essence: If he’s not a fed, why wasn’t he charged? 

Now he has been. Yet several of the far-right influencers who pushed the Epps conspiracy theory reacted to the charge with skepticism. The minimal charge for Epps, they claim, is just more proof. 

But in context? While Epps now faces up to six months in prison, more than 100 other Jan. 6 rioters who have been identified to the FBI have still not been charged, as USA TODAY reported in March. They include people caught on video committing acts of violence.