| Topic: | Reply | |
| Posted by: | Michael Ixer | |
| Date/Time: | 23/12/21 17:18:00 |
Simon. I was on presentation given by someone who researched social media and QAnon last January. These are my rough notes below which gives the general gist: it started as an internet game and grew legs. Sorry, can't attribute as session covered by the Chatham House rule. Anyone who believes in QAnon is either using it for nefarious purposes or is extremely gullible. "QAnon 5 years ago originally started as an alternative reality game across various website. Mixture of snippets of truth and imagined "reality", could be manipulate by players. Then it then got hijacked; easy as it was decentralized; then got used as commercial vehicle, fed by those who could easily manipulated it and create a strange "reality" encompassing people such as Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, etc ... - it was then hijacked for right wing politics. Similar things done by Bannon and Cambridge Analytica before ... QAnon became believed by so many that its beliefs got embedded in right wing Republican policies ... US and Republicans stuck with it ... social media reinforces views in bubbles of confirmation bias . Epistemological bubbles don't always help ... The QAnon great awakening didn't happen on 20th Jan 21 - DJT wasn't inaugurated and Democrats not slaughtered. [March 4th 2021 didn't happen either!] Obviously a view of the researcher but has credibility! |