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The QAnon Conspiracy Phenomenon

Ogdred Weary said:
This would not surprise me.
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I've not gone fully down the rabbit hole, as it were, but from an initial read of the thread, he seems like a serious, experienced individual, so it is wirth considering at least.
 
Ascalon said:
I've not gone fully down the rabbit hole, as it were, but from an initial read of the thread, he seems like a serious, experienced individual, so it is wirth considering at least.
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I recall listening to an episode of Sam Harris' podcast where a former Neo-Nazi who now runs an organisation looking to de-radicalize people from the far right found a "backdoor" in a FB account that had been used to indoctrinate a teen girl. They managed to find out the account holder was Russian and had many other accounts with fake accounts advocating all manner of extreme political positions - across the ideological spectrum.

This was shown to the young woman who then messaged the "young man" she thought she had been writing to. The guy on the podcast had all his organisations webpages attacked and they all had to be taken down. The person/organisation responisble for sorting out the mess said the level of attack (I forget details) was something he would expect from an entity with he power of a country.
 
Not just Qanon but literally every conspiracy theory in the book!

North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson has said it himself: He’s a conspiracy theorist.

He didn’t specify in that March interview what that means in terms of what he believes. It turns out it means he has spread virtually every conspiracy theory you can think of.

Robinson, who is the state’s lieutenant governor, has said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the 1969 moon landing was fake and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job.” He’s “SERIOUSLY skeptical” of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and of the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. He falsely accused David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, of being a paid actor. He’s claimed that climate change is based on “junk science.”
And those are just the dangerous theories he’s echoed that have been previously reported.

In lesser-noticed social media posts, Robinson has said that news coverage of police shootings is part of a media conspiracy “designed to push US towards their new world order.” He and his wife both liked a since-deleted Facebook comment that stated, “WWG1WGA are my ‘Identity’ letters,” a reference to the QAnon rallying cry “Where we go one, we go all.” In October 2018, on a day when authorities intercepted pipe bombs intended for President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CNN, Robinson suggested on Facebook that they had done it to themselves. “If you can’t beat ’em, bomb yourself,” he wrote.

He followed that with another Facebook post claiming, “This entire ‘bombing’ story is faker than a $20 Rolex sold on a New York City sidewalk.” Months later, another post on his Facebook page parroted the conspiracy theory that the pipe bomb incident was “manufactured” and “fake.”

Robinson is also a regular proponent of conspiracies claiming the music industry is being run by Satan and the Illuminati. He has called Beyoncé’s music “satanic” and described Jay-Z as “demonic” and sent by Satan to turn people away from Jesus. He suggested that the 2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria was orchestrated by billionaire Democratic philanthropist George Soros, ...

In one instance, Robinson warned on Facebook that the reality TV shows American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and Chopped are a sign of an impending New World Order. He said they remind him of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s “Show Trials. Where people were lined up and judged then executed.” ...


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/repu...lina-governor-race_n_64df8cabe4b0ce7f01203a6b
 

The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World​

James Ball

A very good look at the way madness is created in almost perfectly designed breeding grounds of the internet and then and spread across vast number of people. The main idea of the book, that conspiracy theories and corresponding way of thinking is akin to a virus, literally and metaphorically, sounds a bit far fetched at the beginning, but the arguments for it are quite solid. As you would expect, it’s a bit short on solutions to the proble how to tackle this pandemic, but a correct diagnosis of the problem is already a huge step forward.
 

Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America​

Will Sommer

Journalist Will Summer provides a comprehensive overview of the rise of the QAnon conspiracy movement starting from the first posts by Q. He depicts many of the players driving the QAnon movement including people using the movement to scam people and profit from their beliefs. He also discusses people that have been totally consumed by their obsessions as well as people who have fallen victim to harassments by QAnon members. The book is recommended to people interested in understanding this world-wide phenomenon.
 
*ahem* dons shiny tin hat

Frankly, I think...well suspect anyway...that QAnon is government propaganda. You know that internet thing going around that those nutty eco-terrorists are just plants to make climate activists look unhinged? Works in more than one field....meanwhile all of it is a distraction from noticing the thngs going on that the governments don't want you to notice.

removes tin hat and resumes eating tater tots and watching Ghosthunters
 
Aydee_Aitchdee said:
*ahem* dons shiny tin hat

Frankly, I think...well suspect anyway...that QAnon is government propaganda. You know that internet thing going around that those nutty eco-terrorists are just plants to make climate activists look unhinged? Works in more than one field....meanwhile all of it is a distraction from noticing the thngs going on that the governments don't want you to notice.

removes tin hat and resumes eating tater tots and watching Ghosthunters
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I think that’s a bit far fetched and hard to plan and actually pull it off, on the face of it, it looks like a classic case of misinformation deliberately spread, and targeted at the hard of thinking
 
Robbrent said:
I think that’s a bit far fetched and hard to plan and actually pull it off, on the face of it, it looks like a classic case of misinformation deliberately spread, and targeted at the hard of thinking
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Factually I agree with you. But imagining how Aydee's idea might be realized in practice is a fun exercise. How would you go about hiring these people? I suppose you would probably have a fixed staff for these stunts, something like the Leningrad Troll Farm.
 
Robbrent said:
I think that’s a bit far fetched and hard to plan and actually pull it off, on the face of it, it looks like a classic case of misinformation deliberately spread, and targeted at the hard of thinking
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Which is more or less what propaganda is... :)

propaganda, dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion. It is often conveyed through mass media.
 
Oh, here we go ...

You do realise the concept of truth has been discussed over millennia? I'm getting out. LATERZ
 
People consistently overestimate the ability of "the government" to orchestrate social plots. Bureaucracy is desperately inefficient and works through people. Hundreds and thousands of governmental workers are not able to keep a complex plot going. You are only as strong as your weakest link and, from working in government for 30+ years, I can tell you there are a LOT of incompetent, incapable "links".

So QAnon as a government plot is nonsensical and ludicrous. It's a plot, alright, but by unhinged people who are terrified of social change and the future.
 
Sharon Hill said:
People consistently overestimate the ability of "the government" to orchestrate social plots. Bureaucracy is desperately inefficient and works through people.
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The US government has a long history of censorship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_States

Besides, what makes you think it's the government bureaucracy conducting the propaganda? It's easier to get the media to publicize whatever issue du jour is capturing the zeitgeist.
 
Yeah. They've done it in the past.
Is that evidence of them doing it now?
 
 
So heavily censored and manipulated that it's reported in the media often. Why don't they stop the reportage?
I'd rather be in a socialist country than a capitalist one ... but that's politics which doesn't really have a place on this forum.
 
When it comes to gub'mint cover-ups, the existence of past (exposed) operations doesn't 'prove' the existence of proposed ones today.
The idea that "We know these conspiracies were true - how many do we NOT know about" is a silly question.
We know the Earth has a moon/satellite (discuss), therefore another moon must be in orbit.
 
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