Last week, Twitter began suspending accounts that promote the QAnon conspiracy. In May of this year, a small protest took place on O’Connell Street where at least one sign or banner featured the acronym WWG1WGA. That acronym means Where We Go One We Go All, and is one of several mantras associated with QAnon, a conspiracy movement that can be loosely framed as a digital cult, which has been bubbling away online, and increasingly offline, over the past 2½ years.
QAnon emerged from the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory. In 2016, when WikiLeaks published the emails of Hillary Clinton’s then campaign manager, John Podesta, the instigators of the Pizzagate conspiracy falsely claimed that the emails were loaded with code relating to paedophilia and human trafficking. The garbled conversations across online discussion forums including Reddit and 4chan, culminated in a man turning up at a pizzeria in Washington DC called Comet Ping Pong to free non-existent trapped children from a non-existent basement. The following year, someone calling themselves “Q” began posting false claims on the discussion boards 4chan and 8chan that formed the architecture of the ever-evolving QAnon conspiracy. In broad brushstrokes, the conspiracy attests that a group of paedophiles rule the world, and Donald Trump is the saviour who will put an end to their reign by battling internal forces in the US military and government.
The conspiracy attests paedophiles rule the world, and Trump is the saviour who will put an end to their reign
The conspiracy is loaded with wild detail and offshoots that cover everything from apocalyptic thinking, anti-Semitic conspiracies, attacks on mainstream media, far-right ideology, delusions about the so-called “Deep State”, general paranoia about controlling forces, as well as riffing on conspiracy theories of the past that orientate around “New World Order”-type conspiracies of the late-20th century. In many ways QAnon is an umbrella conspiracy that shelters many other conspiracies within it. What makes QAnon different, of course, is the internet. The role of algorithms in nudging people further into the soup of escalating conspiracy-content that they may initially have only dipped their toe into is a radicalisation pipeline that is distorting many people’s opinions, mode of thinking and world views.
Facebook role
There are QAnon “documentaries” loaded with false claims that have been viewed millions of times, and the conspiracy has been gathering followers across social media, particularly on Facebook. In an investigation by the Guardian, the newspaper found that Facebook “is not merely providing a platform to QAnon groups. Its powerful algorithms are actively recommending them to users who may not otherwise have been exposed to them.” Q-related content doesn’t just live on Facebook of course. It’s everywhere; in Instagram stories, on Twitter, and increasingly on TikTok, which has a much younger user-base than Twitter and Facebook’s older cohort.
In the recent New York Times Rabbit Hole podcast, a former QAnon believer spoke about her journey into and out of the conspiracy. In some cases, people have “lost” their family members and friends to the conspiracy, reminiscent of how people fall victim to cults or extremist religious sects.
The main inoculation is probably spending less time online and arming oneself with an array of facts and perspectives
Upon encountering QAnon for the first time, it’s tempting to rubbish it. Its sentiments are so sensationally ridiculous, so nebulous, its conclusions so outrageously ridiculous, one could choose to ignore it. But ignoring it won’t make it go away. The radicalisation of people online, and the ease with which people can fall for false information and get sucked into the world of conspiracy initially just out of curiosity before the hall of mirrors completely distorts reality, is worrying. The main inoculation against conspiracies such as these is probably spending less time online and arming oneself with an array of facts and perspectives. But conspiracies are seductive, and arenas where facts used to triumph are depleting. The pandemic-instigated collapse in advertising has delivered another devastating blow to print media, for example.
Trump’s base
There are now at least a dozen candidates running for congress in the US who are aligned with the QAnon movement. In some ways, it is a heightened version of the growth of the Tea Party movement. Perhaps in time we may consider what the Tea Party was to the Republican Party, QAnon is to Trump’s base. Recently, Trump’s ex-security adviser Michael Flynn posted a video of himself and others on Twitter taking a QAnon-related “oath”. Ed Mullins, the head of a large New York City police union, raised eyebrows when he appeared on Fox News with a QAnon mug in the background of the office he was broadcasting from.
The growth of QAnon is about American paranoia, but it is also about a much wider feeling of helplessness and discombobulation. It’s about the disintegration of reliable non-sensationalist shared media. It’s about toxic algorithms engineered by tech companies which want to move fast and break things and think less about what they’re shattering. It’s about people who believe themselves to be left behind and the system to be rigged, and who are looking for answers, meaning and community. It’s about distrust in institutions, many of which do little to earn trust. It’s about a lot of things, and while it may be confusing and worrying, packed with lies and wild accusations, ignoring it won’t make it go away. Strengthening our digital literacy, increasing our capacity to fact-check false information and divert others away from spreading conspiracies online and in WhatsApp groups, fostering critical thinking, and spending less time online should be priorities for a healthy information ecosystem.