A Qanon supporter marches in route to the Supreme Court during the Million Maga March protest regarding election results on November 14, 2020 in Washington D.C. Photo: Chris Tuite/imageSPACE/MediaPunch /IPX
Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it's causing, and what we should do about it.
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QAnon followers are certain that President Donald Trump won last month’s election. They are certain the pandemic is a fraud. They are certain that the Democrats are running a cannibalistic, Satanic child sex-trafficking ring. And they are certain that “the storm is coming.”These beliefs are rooted in one single fact: that an anonymous government insider known as Q has been posting cryptic messages for them to decipher since 2017. Advertisem*nt
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For years, QAnon remained a relatively obscure conspiracy theory. But in the last 12 months it has become a full-blown cult that has entered the mainstream, thanks in no small part to social media companies like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, whose algorithms have super-charged the spread of the conspiracy theory, as well as the tacit support of many right-wing figures — including Trump.While the identity of Q remains a mystery, adherents have always maintained that the Q drops posted on both 4chan and 8chan came from the same person, and that this person had insider information about the government.The first cryptic message was posted on 4chan on Oct. 28, 2017 and signed with the letter Q.It was South African web programmer Paul Furber who initially popularized the posts, claiming the Q signature was evidence that the author was a senior official with clearance level Q clearance, a real designation from the U.S. Department of Energy in charge of nuclear policy. Such clearance would theoretically give the person access to information about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.After just over a month, the person writing under the Q signature switched from 4chan to 8chan. While the initial Q drops on 8chan were posted on a board managed by Furber, Q quickly switched to the QResearch board, which was controlled by Jim Watkins’ son Ron Watkins — a man who is currently Trump world’s go-to conspiracy whisperer Advertisem*nt
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