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Like that conspiracy, QAnon relies heavily on the inability of people to distinguish truth from falsehood on the internet. In 2016, a similar, but related, conspiracy known as “Pizzagate” resulted in a shooting at a DC area pizza parlor.
Singer and Emerson Brooking describe in their recent book Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media, this phenomenon of “junk” or “fake news” is not new. Users may only click on one initial QAnon link, but more and more QAnon-related items appear in their feeds or in-boxes, allowing this spiral to accelerate, faster and faster. As users become more interested in that content, algorithms are more likely to recommend posts from groups and users who are likewise deeply invested in the conspiracy theory. This is only worsened by social media, where algorithms on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube often recommend content loosely affiliated with QAnon. īy controlling acceptable forms of information, QAnon traps its members in a downward spiral of radicalization. QAnon dissuades its users from reading mainstream news sources, because prominent news anchors are supposedly active members of the cabal. By encouraging the audience to “research” the topics online, leading users on spirals of increasingly extreme content, QAnon begins to flood them with junk data that inhibits their ability to tell truth from fiction. While many influence operations are centrally organized, QAnon is a community effort, which draws people together to form the conspiracy ad-hoc. Thus QAnon is both a conspiracy theory and a self-sustaining environment of disinformation and misinformation. QAnon hijacks the architecture of social media to create an alternate information environment where its proponents can live. Rather, QAnon forms its own media environment, providing news sources, social groups, and places to gather. The conspiracy is not transmitted by word-of-mouth, print media, or even press coverage.
What differentiates QAnon from a typical conspiracy theory is that social media has been integral to its rise and central to how QAnon spreads and changes. QAnon has strangely validated those hurt by pandemic lockdowns by providing a simple, if dangerous, explanation for what is happening. As Coronavirus lockdowns have intensified, QAnon’s support has likewise ballooned, both in the United States and abroad, despite the American-centric viewpoint. Federal government inefficiencies and failed Trump campaign promises thus transform, via QAnon, into firm convictions that a nefarious Cabal is obstructing the President. Central to QAnon is the belief that the federal bureaucracy is actively preventing President Trump from carrying out his agenda. Īs political scientists Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent have pointed out, conspiracy theories are often “release valves” for social groups which feel powerless.
Next, posts filter into explicitly QAnon-based social media groups and posters, and from there, watered-down versions are laundered into more standard-seeming conservative and right-wing social media spaces. These cryptic posts, mainly made up of questions to the audience and brief answer clues, are then collected and posted outside of 8kun, where they are treated as breadcrumbs leading to a larger truth. The lifecycle of a QAnon belief begins in a “Q Drop,” where an anonymous user claiming to be a high-level government official, known as Q, posts solely on “8kun,” a spinoff of the popular anonymous public forum 4chan.
Indeed, many people receive news and information that originates from QAnon without realizing where it comes from. It often uses hashtags and group names seemingly unrelated to QAnon. QAnon mainly lives on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The only thing in their way is President Trump, who is fighting an underground war against them. QAnon’s core belief is that a secret, pedophilic cabal of major news figures, celebrities, authors, billionaires, elected officials, and Democratic Party officials is conspiring to take over the world. Because of this, the technological architecture of social media has enabled QAnon to flourish despite its outlandish claims QAnon, a family of conspiracies that has spread rapidly in recent years, reflects anxieties held by certain Americans. Many specious theories linger beneath the surface of mainstream American debate, though most disappear over time.
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“Americans have been quick to anticipate tyranny, despotism, and a full spectrum of apocalyptic scenarios, from red coats to black helicopters,” argues a recent study.” As fears and enemies have come and gone, sources of subterfuge have likewise evolved. Photo Credit: Louis Velazquez (Capitol) Dalton Caraway (Flags)Ĭonspiracy theories have a long history in American politics.