https://www.npr.org/2021/01/31/962104747/unwelcome-on-facebook-twitter-q***n-followers-flock-to-fringe-sites

January brought a one-two punch that should have knocked out the fantastical, false Q***n conspiracy theory.

After the J*** 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the social media platforms that had long allowed the falsehoods to spread like wildfire — namely Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — got more aggressive in cracking down on accounts promoting Q***n.

Just two weeks later, Joe Biden was inaugurated president. That stunned those adherents who believed, among other things, that Donald Trump would stay in office for another term and that he would arrest and execute his political enemies.

"There's no one cohesive narrative that's really emerged yet. And I pin that on [Q***n] not really having a leader right now," said Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory researcher who is writing a book about Q***n.

The Q***n universe has two stars. There's Q, the mysterious figure whose cryptic, evidence-free posts on anonymous online message boards spawned the baseless claim that a satanic cabal of p*******es runs rampant in government and Hollywood. The other star is Trump, who was supposed to expose and defeat that cabal.

But both figures have gone silent online. Whoever Q is, the account has pretty much stopped posting on those message boards since the 2020 e******n. Trump was kicked off Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube after urging his supporters to go to the Capitol.

And yet, even as the big social media platforms try to squash harmful misinformation and h**e speech, the conspiracy has survived in the darker corners of the Internet. As Q***n believers splinter onto different fringe platforms, experts warn they could absorb even more dangerous conspiracy theories and ideologies. What's more, Q***n has gained defenders in conservative media and among Republicans in Congress.

The events of J*** 6 underscore how Q***n has leaped from the fringes of the Internet to the real world. Some r****rs in the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol openly expressed support for Q***n. That prompted Twitter, which along with Facebook and YouTube had started limiting Q***n content last year, to clamp down even more.

In the days after the Capitol i**********n, Twitter banned 70,000 Q***n-linked accounts for spreading the conspiracy theory. Some belonged to influencers with large followings, including high-profile Trump supporters Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, who had also spread false claims of e******n f***d and had tried to get the e******n results overturned.

The result? "There isn't one central place that people are finding information in terms of influential accounts, and it's kind of become more disparate," said Melanie Smith of the research firm Graphika.

Graphika found that among a dense network of 14,000 Q***n-promoting Twitter accounts it has been tracking, 60% are now inactive. That splintering makes it harder for harmful, even violent ideas to gain traction — and less likely that unsuspecting Twitter users will stumble across them.

"For me, [this] is about not exposing new communities to that type of content," Smith said. "So in my mind, that's a pretty big success."

It's hard to quantify just how many people follow Q***n. When NPR and Ipsos polled people about whether they believe Q***n's core false claim — that "a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media" — 17% said it was true, and another 37% said they didn't know.

While some people who may be susceptible to believing the falsehoods may never see them, Smith and other researchers warn there is a cost to that success: As Q***n influencers and their followers are pushed off mainstream platforms, some are migrating to apps with fewer rules, like the alternative social network Gab and the messaging app Telegram. There, they may be exposed to more extremist content, like that of w***e s*********t and neo-N**i groups.

"What they're essentially doing is walking straight into an incubator for radicalization," said Jared Holt, a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, where he studies disinformation and extremism.

Q***n is already incorporating new, unfounded theories from other extremists. Some accounts are latching onto obscure legal fictions promoted by sovereign-citizen groups, which deny the legitimacy of the U.S. government, such as the bogus idea that Trump will be inaugurated on March 4.

Holt said such adoption is "just another example of something that Q***n has done repeatedly, if not constantly, which is crowdsourcing their idea of reality."

Q***n's constant evolution presents a challenge for platforms like Twitter and Facebook in enforcing their bans by stamping out new conspiracy theories and hashtags appropriated by Q***n believers.

But even if effective, the platforms' actions can go only so far.

Q***n podcasts are available through Apple and Google. Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently defended Q***n adherents. Q***n has even gained a foothold in the halls of Congress, where two Republican members have openly supported some of the movement's baseless ideas.

"When you've got people like Tucker Carlson or sitting members of the House of Representatives talking about something, it's hard to ban it," said Rothschild, the researcher.

"I think this movement is now so mainstream and has pulled in so many people that it seems inconceivable that it will go away completely," he said.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/31/962104747/unwelcome-on-facebook-twitter-q***n-followers-flock-to-fringe-sites

January brought a one-two punch that should have knocked out the fantastical, false Q***n conspiracy theory.

After the J*** 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the social media platforms that had long allowed the falsehoods to spread like wildfire — namely Twitter, Facebook and YouTube — got more aggressive in cracking down on accounts promoting Q***n.

Just two weeks later, Joe Biden was inaugurated president. That stunned those adherents who believed, among other things, that Donald Trump would stay in office for another term and that he would arrest and execute his political enemies.

"There's no one cohesive narrative that's really emerged yet. And I pin that on [Q***n] not really having a leader right now," said Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory researcher who is writing a book about Q***n.

The Q***n universe has two stars. There's Q, the mysterious figure whose cryptic, evidence-free posts on anonymous online message boards spawned the baseless claim that a satanic cabal of p*******es runs rampant in government and Hollywood. The other star is Trump, who was supposed to expose and defeat that cabal.

But both figures have gone silent online. Whoever Q is, the account has pretty much stopped posting on those message boards since the 2020 e******n. Trump was kicked off Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube after urging his supporters to go to the Capitol.

And yet, even as the big social media platforms try to squash harmful misinformation and h**e speech, the conspiracy has survived in the darker corners of the Internet. As Q***n believers splinter onto different fringe platforms, experts warn they could absorb even more dangerous conspiracy theories and ideologies. What's more, Q***n has gained defenders in conservative media and among Republicans in Congress.

The events of J*** 6 underscore how Q***n has leaped from the fringes of the Internet to the real world. Some r****rs in the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol openly expressed support for Q***n. That prompted Twitter, which along with Facebook and YouTube had started limiting Q***n content last year, to clamp down even more.

In the days after the Capitol i**********n, Twitter banned 70,000 Q***n-linked accounts for spreading the conspiracy theory. Some belonged to influencers with large followings, including high-profile Trump supporters Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, who had also spread false claims of e******n f***d and had tried to get the e******n results overturned.

The result? "There isn't one central place that people are finding information in terms of influential accounts, and it's kind of become more disparate," said Melanie Smith of the research firm Graphika.

Graphika found that among a dense network of 14,000 Q***n-promoting Twitter accounts it has been tracking, 60% are now inactive. That splintering makes it harder for harmful, even violent ideas to gain traction — and less likely that unsuspecting Twitter users will stumble across them.

"For me, [this] is about not exposing new communities to that type of content," Smith said. "So in my mind, that's a pretty big success."

It's hard to quantify just how many people follow Q***n. When NPR and Ipsos polled people about whether they believe Q***n's core false claim — that "a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media" — 17% said it was true, and another 37% said they didn't know.

While some people who may be susceptible to believing the falsehoods may never see them, Smith and other researchers warn there is a cost to that success: As Q***n influencers and their followers are pushed off mainstream platforms, some are migrating to apps with fewer rules, like the alternative social network Gab and the messaging app Telegram. There, they may be exposed to more extremist content, like that of w***e s*********t and neo-N**i groups.

"What they're essentially doing is walking straight into an incubator for radicalization," said Jared Holt, a visiting research fellow at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, where he studies disinformation and extremism.

Q***n is already incorporating new, unfounded theories from other extremists. Some accounts are latching onto obscure legal fictions promoted by sovereign-citizen groups, which deny the legitimacy of the U.S. government, such as the bogus idea that Trump will be inaugurated on March 4.

Holt said such adoption is "just another example of something that Q***n has done repeatedly, if not constantly, which is crowdsourcing their idea of reality."

Q***n's constant evolution presents a challenge for platforms like Twitter and Facebook in enforcing their bans by stamping out new conspiracy theories and hashtags appropriated by Q***n believers.

But even if effective, the platforms' actions can go only so far.

Q***n podcasts are available through Apple and Google. Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently defended Q***n adherents. Q***n has even gained a foothold in the halls of Congress, where two Republican members have openly supported some of the movement's baseless ideas.

"When you've got people like Tucker Carlson or sitting members of the House of Representatives talking about something, it's hard to ban it," said Rothschild, the researcher.

"I think this movement is now so mainstream and has pulled in so many people that it seems inconceivable that it will go away completely," he said.

What is so worrisome is that human capacity to sweep away all reason and logic and latch onto unrestrained fancy as reality. That is what Trump tried to do during his administration and had he been reelected for a second term, would have succeeded in destroying t***h in government and our constitution. I,Trump, am the only purveyor of t***h and reality so follow me (on the road to perdition). Alas, even though he may be gone from the world stage, he has set in motion the veracity of fanciful thinking and logic. Is it no wonder that he had no belief in science or knowledge. These are vestiges of our primitive minds and culture when we still burned witches and drove wooden stakes into the hearts of daemons and stoned heathens. I would have thought that we surpassed those dark, demonic practices long ago, but they cling stubbornly to our psyches. Woe is us if we can't rise to a higher social scale than our ancestral caveman. Someone hand me a club!