New York Times: A QAnon ‘Digital Soldier’ Marches On, Undeterred by Theory’s Unraveling. “Every morning, Valerie Gilbert, a Harvard-educated writer and actress, wakes up in her Upper East Side apartment; feeds her dog, Milo, and her cats, Marlena and Celeste; brews a cup of coffee; and sits down at her oval dining room table. Then, […]
NBC News: Online far-right movements fracture in wake of Capitol riot. “Online far-right movements are splintering in the wake of last week’s Capitol riot, as some radical anti-government movements show signs of disillusionment with the relatively hands-off approach of some QAnon conspiracy theorists amid warnings of future violence.”
Rolling Stone: Patreon Claimed They Kicked Conspiracy Theorists Off. QAnon Still Flourishes. “Both aspiring and well-established QAnon influencers are directly profiting off the paid subscription service platform Patreon, despite the website publicly cracking down on accounts pushing the conspiracy theory last winter. Rolling Stone found nearly a dozen examples of creators on the platform using […]
CNN: The QAnon conspiracy is fake. The harm it’s doing to child welfare groups is real. “Child welfare organizations for months have felt the full weight of the coronavirus pandemic, navigating concerns about unreported abuse and ensuring their resources are available to at-risk children. But now, deeper into the outbreak, a new challenge is emerging […]
The Conversation: On Twitter, bots spread conspiracy theories and QAnon talking points. “Americans who seek political insight and information on Twitter should know how much of what they are seeing is the result of automated propaganda campaigns. Nearly four years after my collaborators and I revealed how automated Twitter accounts were distorting online election discussions […]
NBC News: QAnon accounts make a dent in voting discussion on Twitter. “More than 1 in 50 tweets about voting in the 2020 elections in August and September were posted by QAnon accounts, according to research released Friday by Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit.”
Insider: Etsy will remove all QAnon-related merchandise from the platform as tech companies fight the conspiracy theory’s growth. “Etsy’s QAnon content, which appears to already be absent from or unsearchable on the website [October 7], included shirts, bumper stickers, and jewelry.”
BBC: QAnon: YouTube moves to purge ‘harmful conspiracy theories’. “YouTube has become the latest social media giant to announce a sweeping crack down on content linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory. The company said it would ban material targeting a person or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify violence, such as […]
Teen Vogue: QAnon Conspiracy Theories Are Driving Families Apart. “Like many Gen-Z’ers, 18-year-old Emily doesn’t spend much time on Facebook. Recently, though, she started using the social media platform to find a roommate and look for scholarship opportunities. While browsing, she saw her mother’s page, which she said was filled with ‘crackpot theories’ revolving around […]
Vox: Facebook and Twitter said they would crack down on QAnon, but the delusion seems unstoppable. “In many ways, any effort to stop QAnon’s rising influence is too late. The theory continues to grow online, in both the number of followers and the strength of its political influence in the Republican Party. The growing political […]
NBC News: Facebook bans QAnon across its platforms. “Facebook said Tuesday that it is banning all QAnon accounts from its platforms, a significant escalation over its previous actions and one of the broadest rules the social media giant has put in place in its history. Facebook said the change is an update on the policy […]
Rolling Stone: QAnon Followers Think Trump’s Covid-19 Tweet Had a Secret Message About Hillary Clinton. “The apparent cognitive dissonance we’re seeing far-right extremists display following Trump’s diagnosis actually makes a lot of sense, says Kathleen Stansberry, assistant professor of strategic communications at Elon University. ‘There’s something called the backfire effect. It essentially says that when […]
AP: Facebook, Twitter flounder in QAnon crackdown. “Facebook and Twitter promised to stop encouraging the growth of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon, which fashions President Donald Trump as a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring run by celebrities and government officials, after it reached an audience of millions on their platforms this year. But […]
NBC News: QAnon leaders look to rebrand after tech crack downs. “Facing crackdowns from tech companies that limit the reach of their content, leaders in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement have been urging their followers to drop the ‘QAnon’ label from their wide-ranging conspiracy theories and simply refer to their fight against a fictitious cabal […]
MIT Technology Review: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead.. “The tenets of QAnon are specific: that Trump is the chosen one to finally destroy a ring of Satanic pedophiles long protected by access to elite positions of authority, and that Q will provide the clues to lead followers to the truth. […]