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The first 9/11 conspiracy theories appeared on the internet just hours after the attacks, on 11 September 2001, and with the rise of social media, have grown in scope and scale ever since.
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Extensive reports by the 9/11 Commission, US government agencies and expert groups have refuted the existence of any hidden conspiracy.
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But activist groups in the US and elsewhere, the 9/11 Truth movement, say the facts have been hidden.
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Some leading members of the movement have also embraced conspiracies about Covid-19 and vaccines.
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And some senior politicians, celebrities and media figures have also disputed the official account.
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'World government'
The rise of new conspiracy movements online, such as QAnon, whose followers, among other conspiratorial views, believe a US "deep state" responsible for the attacks, has kept these conspiracy theories in circulation and brought them to a far larger audience.
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And online clips from a series of films known as Loose Change have reinforced many of the falsehoods circulating.
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Some claim the US government staged the attacks or knew of them in advance and allowed them.
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And these falsehoods mesh with more recent online movements' belief global elites plan to curtail civil liberties in response to the attacks and facilitate the establishment of an authoritarian world government.
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Two commercial jet liners crash into the World Trade Center, consequently causing both towers to implode and fall
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Online conspiracy-theory platforms continue to push claims of US involvement in the attacks
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A claim widely shared online, "Jet fuel cannot melt steel beams," suggests the World Trade Center's Twin Towers were demolished by explosives.
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But according to an official report, the crashed planes considerably damaged support columns of both the towers and dislodged fire-proofing.
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Additionally, the fires reached up to 1,000C in some areas, causing the steel beams to warp and the eventual collapse of the buildings.
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Uncontrolled fires
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The collapse of 7 World Trade Center, a 47-storey skyscraper in the vicinity of the Twin Towers, has attracted many conspiracy theories, some of which were trending on major social networks on last year's 9/11 anniversary.
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This building - containing offices of the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the Office of Emergency Management - collapsed hours after the Twin Towers without being hit by a plane or directly targeted.
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But in 2008, a three-year investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded it had collapsed because of intense and uncontrolled fires - lasting for nearly seven hours - started by debris from the fall of the nearby North Tower.
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7 World Trade Center was the first tower of its kind to collapse because a fire.
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But in 2017, the Plasco tower in the Iranian capital, Tehran, became the second.
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Go viral
The fact the collapse of 7 World Trade Center was announced in a live report by BBC News correspondent Jane Stanley - while it was still visibly standing behind her - has been cited by conspiracy theorists as evidence major media organisations were part of the inside-job plot.
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World Trade Center was still standing while its collapse was erroneously reported on BBC World News
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The Reuters news agency had mistakenly reported the collapse of the building, which was also picked up by CNN, just before the live report.
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Reuters later issued a correction - but clips of the report continue go viral in the days leading up to 9/11 anniversaries.
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Read further: https://www.bbc.com/news/58469600
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