I think most of this is genuine belief. There was a doctor named Wakefield who fraudulently published this autism claim in academic journals. Those papers were retracted, but the damage was done.

I think it sticks around as a conspiracy, because otherwise there’s not a whole lot else that can explain the causes or origins of autism.

I went and read the hexbear thread on this. Here’s some summary from over there:

• Current hexbear admins lost the domain because the registration was controlled by a single inactive / flaky admin.
• hexbear admin stated an intention to bid in this auction to get their name back.
• chapo.chat is a temporary domain solution only.
• they are also deciding on backup names if they don’t win the auction