I disagree.
I believe that the credibility of such sources and stories take a huge leap many levels UP as such things are proven to be mild compared to the actual realities.
At that point, folks being red pilled becomes greatly more successful at deeper and more intense levels.
The tsk tsk wails of "false conspiracy theory" wailing folks are usually fairly terminally uninformed to begin with. Their allegiances are fickle at best--in many cases. They seem to think largely with their emotions vs their intellect. They seem to be puppets of the MSM. etc. etc. etc.
For one, in case after case after case, the folks alerting to conspiracies being real have been proven right over and over and over again.
That track record is now many decades long. The poorly informed may still be ignorant of it but not the wise and well informed.
And, often, even the wildest assertions often have a kernel of truth in them--that eventually surfaces.
Therefore, I consider their tsk tsk tsking to be shallow, temporary and of little weight with most well-informed, thoughtful, bright people.
In terms of credibility--organizations like FR; individuals like Hannity; Lou Dobbs etc. built up their credibility over a long period of time.
Thoughtful, mature, bright folks realize that even a horrendous hit of negative credibility is just that--a rare exception to the rule. They won't give it much undue weight--compared to the longer history of great credibility.
There was a long list of very high powered FREEPERS who--with great hostility and sway with JR--insisted that Qx deliberately talked about UFO's and globalism totally to cause disrepute to FR.
They could not have been further from the truth. Nevertheless, they had quite a following on FR with some support for that perspective from JR.
How does that perspective look now?
The DOD has published an official UFO video from a military jet's camera with affirming authentication that it is the real thing. And, evidently virtually all FREEPERS have NOW realized that the globalist threat to our Republic is extremely real and outrageously threatening.
If anything, FR's denial of the evidence and facts earlier did more to damage FR's credibility to well informed researchers than any significant negative effects from the worst of Qx's rants about UFO's and globalism/globalists.
We can agree to disagree—but there is a reason that the opposition plants fake extreme versions of bad stories that are otherwise likely to come out.