Conspiracy theories and theorists can spread harmful lies about history. So why do I engage with them on Twitter? Here are 10 key objectives I have in mind when doing so:

1) Expose. Engaging with conspiracists who claim to hold superior knowledge and thrive off the illusion of objectivity can help to expose them as silly or as holding dubious, sometimes sinister, motives. The latter can help achieve objective two

2) Deter. Seeing an individual one hitherto perceived to be trustworthy, knowledgeable and objective exposed as silly, sinister or both can help to deter potential followers and fans from posting or supporting similar conspiracy theories. This also aids objective three

3) Delegitimise. Conspiracists can sometimes use lack of engagement as 'evidence' that their argument is right for it allegedly cannot be beaten or disproved. Engaging with conspiracists removes the false legitimacy they gain from 'lofty isolation' which links to objective 4

4) Protect. Academics who pride themselves on drawing evidence based conclusions can be accused of hypocrisy for not considering new evidence. Engaging with conspiracists who claim to have new evidence can therefore protect against such accusations (and that of lofty isolation!).

5) Discover. Conspiracy theories are sometimes right! And when they are not, engaging with fresh evidence conveyed by conspiracists can often provide yet more evidence with which to disprove the conspiracy theories.

6) Convince. People who believe conspiracy theories and help spread them on social media often don't read academic books. However, not all such individuals are impervious to reason, it just requires a more familiar format to convince them of the facts.

7) Educate. Some believers and spreaders of conspiracy theories are genuinely just misinformed and unaware of the facts. I know from experience that such minds can change when they are presented with facts they would otherwise be unaware of.

8) No unchallenged platform. Conspiracist posts on social media can get thousands of likes and comments in their favour with barely (if any) opposition. Challenging them helps to expose lies which would otherwise go unchallenged thereby spreading truth and deterring future lies.

9) Contain. All of these steps can help to stop harmful lies from spreading further. The more who are deterred and convinced by the steps outlined above means less likes on conspiracist posts, less positive sharing and fewer new conspiracist posts too.

10) Prevent. This is my ultimate objective. I want to stop potentially and actually harmful lies about the past from being spread. It is my duty as a historian to disseminate the truth about the past.

PS. This is a complicated issue. I share the concerns of those who think engaging can spread lies further. I'm more inclined to agree when it comes to a platform conspiracists otherwise would not have. But they already have Twitter, and they are using it, often unchallenged...

...Moreover, lies about history have been given the biggest platform, TV. This has already given them false legitimacy. By exposing such lies on Twitter, I am taking away the legitimacy they have already gained in the eyes of the public through shows like Hunting Hitler.