It&#x27;s pretty easy to justify why you would lie, if I think you are an ideologue who truly believes that Facebook trending topics must be curated with a certain slant for the greater good.<p>When you believe in a conspiracy theory, hearing &quot;why would I lie&quot; doesn&#x27;t change your mind, quite the opposite. It&#x27;s also not true that there&#x27;s &quot;nothing that anyone can say that would prove that any system works as described&quot;. There&#x27;s no general statement that will convince everyone, because everyone has personalized doubt about it.<p>It&#x27;s certainly possible to assuage the fears of a conspiracy theorist - take their examples, give a credible, particularized explanation(not a vague &quot;it&#x27;s algorithmic&quot;, but describe the steps in detail), and show some goodwill to address their underlying fears. What you perhaps wanted to say was that you don&#x27;t really care about convincing conspiracy theorists, which is fine, but very different.<p>edit: wording