internet: QAnon

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

QAnon is a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement that originated in 2017. QAnon centers on the fabrications of an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q Clearance Patriot", more commonly known as "Q". Q's claims have been relayed and developed by online communities and influencers. Their core belief is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic child molesters in league with the deep state is operating a global child sex trafficking ring and that Donald Trump is secretly leading the fight against them. QAnon has direct roots in Pizzagate, another conspiracy theory that appeared on the Internet one year earlier, but also incorporates elements of many diff…

Evidence: 34 • authority: 72

In the United States, a political conspiracy theory posits the existence of a deep state within the US federal government, primarily composed of members of the FBI and CIA. Proponents argue that a clandestine network of conspirators within the leadership of the financial and industrial sectors exercise power alongside or within the elected government. There have been precursors to the idea of a deep state conspiracy since at least the 1950s. The term deep state originated in the 1990s as a reference to high-level anti-democratic coalitions in Turkey, but began to be used to refer to the American government as well, including during the Obama administration. Allegations of a deep state consp…

Evidence: 34 • authority: 72

"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle, falsely claiming that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophile ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner's emails. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police. The personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack in March 2016. WikiLeaks published his emails in November 2016. Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages that connected…

Evidence: 25 • authority: 80

On Twitter, bots spread conspiracy theories and QAnon talking points

Evidence: 25 • authority: 80

The long afterlife of QAnon conspiracy theories haunting American politics

Evidence: 25 • authority: 80

Conspiracy Theories and the Rise of the Superconspiracy Qanon

Evidence: 25 • authority: 80

How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Legitimize Coordinated and Targeted Gender-Based Violence

Evidence: 25 • authority: 80

QAnon and Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories

Evidence: 25 • authority: 92

The revelations of Q. Dissemination and resonance of the QAnon conspiracy theory among US Evangelical Christians and the role of the Covid-19 crisis.. Previous studies show that the QAnon conspiracy theory is especially popular among American evangelical Christians. The paper investigates the reasons behind this relationship. We hypothesize a mediation relationship between evangelical dogma and how it is practiced on the one hand and the susceptibility for conspiracy thinking on the other hand. We argue that evangelicalism due to its biblicism is characterized by the belief that its perception of reality holds absolute truth (nomization), that the world can be clearly divided into good and…

Evidence: 25 • authority: 92

Hidden in plain sight: antisemitic content in QAnon subreddits.. When is online content antisemitic? This matter is highly contested, except in the case of explicit language. Yet implicit antisemitic content and conspiracy narratives about Jews have been on the rise, especially on moderated platforms. This paper maps empirically the connections between explicit antisemitic content and these other forms of content, showing the language game at play in an online community identified as antisemitic and providing a relatively simple answer to the classification of content question. Using data from two QAnon subreddits, r/CBTS_Stream and r/greatawakening, we identify the co-occurrence of explici…

Evidence: 21 • authority: 72

This is a list of notable conspiracy theories. Many conspiracy theories relate to supposed clandestine government plans and elaborate murder plots. They usually deny consensus opinion and cannot be proven using historical or scientific methods, and are not to be confused with research concerning verified conspiracies, such as Germany's pretense for invading Poland in World War II. In principle, conspiracy theories might not always be false, and their validity depends on evidence as for any theory. However, they are often implausible prima facie due to their convoluted and all-encompassing nature. Conspiracy theories tend to be internally consistent and correlate with each other; they are ge…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Early COVID-19 Government Communication Is Associated With Reduced Interest in the QAnon Conspiracy Theory.. Does inadequate risk communication during uncertain times trigger the rise of conspiratorial ideas? We hypothesize that, where government COVID-19 risk communication started early, as measured by the number of days between the start of the communication campaign and the first case in the country, citizens are less likely to turn to conspiratorial explanations for the pandemic, which typically assign blame to powerful actors with secret interests. In Study 1a, we find strong support for our hypothesis in a global sample of 111 countries, using daily Google search volumes for QAnon as…