Peter Jukes, the man behind conspiracy site Byline, has claimed the Telegraph are secretly plotting to undermine him. Last night, an emotional Jukes alleged the Telegraph and LinkedIn are using “bots” in a “campaign” to target his contacts:

That would be a pretty extraordinary way for a newspaper to behave. Jukes nonetheless is convinced he is the victim of a conspiracy:

Indeed he believes “dark arts” are at play:

Could he be correct? Alas, as Phil Hendren explains, the LinkedIn emails are simply an algorithm used by the social media network:

“When our algorithm identifies a news story that mentions you, you’ll receive a You Made the News email. This email includes the news stories about you that are shared with your LinkedIn connections and followers, should your privacy settings allow such sharing.”

So no Telegraph conspiracy, just a LinkedIn algorithm that Jukes himself permitted in his privacy settings…

Tin foil hat wearing Jukes responded by making another allegation, that Hendren is an agent of Andy Coulson. Unfortunately, that theory also turned out to be false. Hendren has never met Coulson.

Remember, this is the man claiming the existence of a vast media conspiracy to cover up Whittingdale’s private life…