A thread for updates on the various ways the internet is destroying everything and the undying hellsites of social media. Let's all laugh at the abyss.
No, I'm not proposing to pour facts. And I'm certainly not proposing that any mass media outlet try to inform them, that would obviously fail. These people meet in online groups, on facebook, on reddit, wherever... I'm suggesting someone go there and ask questions. Plant seeds of doubt. Surely not every Q fanatic is 100% onboard. It doesn't take many cracks to tear small groups like this apart. Tear apart enough small groups and the cult as a whole starts having problems.
I'd do it myself, but I do not have the temperament to remain sane after such an encounter.
No, I'm not proposing to pour facts. And I'm certainly not proposing that any mass media outlet try to inform them, that would obviously fail. These people meet in online groups, on facebook, on reddit, wherever... I'm suggesting someone go there and ask questions. Plant seeds of doubt. Surely not every Q fanatic is 100% onboard. It doesn't take many cracks to tear small groups like this apart. Tear apart enough small groups and the cult as a whole starts having problems.
You know the internet better than that. Sealioning doesn't work.
There is surely an approach somewhere between shoving facts down someone's throat and being obnoxiously persistent.
There is surely an approach somewhere between shoving facts down someone's throat and being obnoxiously persistent.
What would it take to convince YOU that QAnon is correct?
Now, that that herculean effort and apply it in the opposite direction.
That's roughly akin to what you're proposing. Some sort of mass de-radicalization. And that's very, very difficult, and/or called "politics".
I've tried to very gently, persistently plant seeds of doubt in the mind of someone who was persistently distressed by crackpot theories that Obama was going to round up all the guns and declare himself dictator.
As benign as I was about it, the result is that ultimately this person came to subconsciously see me as the enemy and cut off all contact with me. I might as well have been challenging his religious beliefs.
Let's not forget what happens when some well-meaning fellow pops into GWJ to ask questions about say, whether feminism is evil, whether white privilege exists, or whether trans people are mentally ill.
Cos I ain't seeing those cracks that ought to be tearing this community apart as a result. Instead, I see the Streisand Effect in full force, and those people are hounded out of this community, and the exact opposite of their intent becomes more entrenched.
I mean, we can pat ourselves on the back about being in the right all we like, but that dynamic isn't unique to the left.
Anyway, Charlie Warzel has it right. FB can't be reformed.
“I Have Blood on My Hands”: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation
Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and obtained by BuzzFeed News.The 6,600-word memo, written by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, is filled with concrete examples of heads of government and political parties in Azerbaijan and Honduras using fake accounts or misrepresenting themselves to sway public opinion. In countries including India, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, she found evidence of coordinated campaigns of varying sizes to boost or hinder political candidates or outcomes, though she did not always conclude who was behind them.
“In the three years I’ve spent at Facebook, I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions,” wrote Zhang, who declined to talk to BuzzFeed News. Her LinkedIn profile said she “worked as the data scientist for the Facebook Site Integrity fake engagement team” and dealt with “bots influencing elections and the like.”
“I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count,” she wrote.
The memo is a damning account of Facebook’s failures. It’s the story of Facebook abdicating responsibility for malign activities on its platform that could affect the political fate of nations outside the United States or Western Europe. It's also the story of a junior employee wielding extraordinary moderation powers that affected millions of people without any real institutional support, and the personal torment that followed.
“I know that I have blood on my hands by now,” Zhang wrote.
'The difference is QAnon': how a conspiratorial hate campaign upended California politics
Catie Stewart was on her way home from a vacation in early August when her phone reconnected to cell service and she realized something was wrong. As the communications director for Scott Wiener, a California state senator, Stewart manages her boss’s Instagram account, a task that usually involves responding to a handful of messages each day. But while Stewart had been out of cellphone range, a bill authored by Wiener had become the target of a misinformation and harassment campaign by activists who oppose coronavirus public health measures and followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory.“f*ckING FILTH. BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF,” read one representative message that accused Wiener of “creating a law to allow pedophiles to be charged on a lesser degree”. Others fantasized about dragging Wiener’s body behind a car until he died, accused him of worshipping “Moloch”, or declared an intention to find and kill him. One meme posted on Instagram featured an image of Wiener photoshopped to enlarge his nose and add sidelocks, a yarmulke and a Jewish prayer shawl. Over the next month, Stewart and Wiener were left to confront a constant digital onslaught of death threats, homophobia, antisemitism and baseless allegations of pedophilia.
“I didn’t know what QAnon was a month ago, and it’s totally changed my life,” Stewart said in an interview.
The frenzied pile-on against Wiener may have begun in fringe internet communities, but it soon grew to include much of the rightwing press and major figures in both the state and national Republican party. In early September, the Texas senator Ted Cruz tweeted a photo of Wiener with the false allegation: “Today’s CA Dems believe we need more adults having sex with children, and when they do, they shouldn’t register as sex offenders.” The president’s adult son Donald Trump Jr joined in, tweeting, again falsely: “Why are Joe Biden Democrats working in California to pander to the wishes of pedophiles and child rapists?”
In some ways, what happened with SB145 is a local story about the politics involved in updating California’s outdated legal codes. But it also serves as a cautionary tale for the future of political debates in the US as the QAnon conspiracy movement grows and Republican party leaders do little or nothing to stop it.
QAnon followers believe, without evidence, that the world is run by a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats and Hollywood celebrities who are engaged in wide-scale child trafficking, pedophilia and cannibalism. A national politics infected by QAnon is wholly incompatible with the evidence-based debate and compromises required to govern any society. Within QAnon there is no room for nuance or rationality; there is only good v evil, and any disagreement with QAnon dogma is evidence of abject depravity in the form of child murder.
After medicare for all, we're gonna need liability insurance for all. When someone is randomly targeted for this kind of harassment, they shouldn't have to pay out of pocket for their security detail, lawyer fees and therapy. This is insane.
John de Lancie must be put out that Q has a higher Q rating than he did as Q.
Mind you, he's not responsible for a repackaging of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, so that's in his favour.
“I didn’t know what QAnon was a month ago, and it’s totally changed my life,” Stewart said in an interview.
I'm always struck by how much the modern right-wing social media landscape looks like GamerGate. Swap out "QAnon" for "GamerGate" and I'm pretty sure I've read this exact quote from a number of GamerGate's victims who suddenly found their lives completely upended by a tidal wave of online harassments and threats of violence based on conspiratorial accusations that hit the wrong parts of the internet.
The Qanon Anonymous podcast periodically does listener episodes where people send in their stories of dealing with redpilled family and friends, and an alarming amount of contributors note how rapidly people go from being reasonable to full-on “literally satanic democrats are drinking the blood of children” Q believers. It often only takes a couple months.
In related news, Joe Rogan repeated the "Left Wing antifa BLM terrorists are starting wildfires in Oregon" conspiracy today, so that's basically gone mainstream.
I was discussing this with a friend today, and both of us agreed, I don't think there's a conspiracy theory too ludicrous not to get some decent traction on RW social media right now. Just matters how you package it.
Citigroup employee who operated QAnon website on paid leave
Jason Gelinas, an employee at Citigroup has been placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation after he was identified as the operator of the most prominent website dedicated to the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Gelinas, who lives in New Jersey, was identified on September 10 as the operator of the website QMap.pup and its associated mobile apps by the fact-checking site Logically.ai. Since then, the website has shut down and now simply provides links to alternative websites offering information on the QAnon conspiracy.
Gelinas earned over $US3,000 ($4,105) a month on a crowd-funded Patreon site dedicated to supporting the QAnon site, which he said helped cover the monthly operating costs.
"As outlined in our Code of Conduct, employees are required to disclose and obtain approvals for outside business activities," Citigroup said in a statement, declining to comment on Gelinas's status.
Gelinas didn't respond to a message seeking comment.
Gelinas is a senior IT group manager, holding the rank of director, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
QMap.pub received more than 10 million visitors in July according to web analytics company SimilarWeb.
...
QMap.pub became the most popular by offering user-friendly features like tags on posts to allow people to search more easily for themes, said Travis View, a researcher who co-hosts the podcast QAnon Anonymous.
"It was very effective because it allowed people to go down their own rabbit holes," he said.
Reached outside his home last week, Gelinas declined to comment on the site, and said that QAnon is "a patriotic movement to save the country."
He must have been an absolute joy to work for...
Citigroup employee who operated QAnon website on paid leave
Financial Review wrote:Jason Gelinas, an employee at Citigroup has been placed on paid leave pending an internal investigation after he was identified as the operator of the most prominent website dedicated to the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Gelinas, who lives in New Jersey, was identified on September 10 as the operator of the website QMap.pup and its associated mobile apps by the fact-checking site Logically.ai. Since then, the website has shut down and now simply provides links to alternative websites offering information on the QAnon conspiracy.
Gelinas earned over $US3,000 ($4,105) a month on a crowd-funded Patreon site dedicated to supporting the QAnon site, which he said helped cover the monthly operating costs.
"As outlined in our Code of Conduct, employees are required to disclose and obtain approvals for outside business activities," Citigroup said in a statement, declining to comment on Gelinas's status.
Gelinas didn't respond to a message seeking comment.
Gelinas is a senior IT group manager, holding the rank of director, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
QMap.pub received more than 10 million visitors in July according to web analytics company SimilarWeb.
...
QMap.pub became the most popular by offering user-friendly features like tags on posts to allow people to search more easily for themes, said Travis View, a researcher who co-hosts the podcast QAnon Anonymous.
"It was very effective because it allowed people to go down their own rabbit holes," he said.
Reached outside his home last week, Gelinas declined to comment on the site, and said that QAnon is "a patriotic movement to save the country."
He must have been an absolute joy to work for...
Right? I REALLY want to hear from some of the people he was managing. I’d love to know what they are thinking right now.
Or how many people at Citigroup he tried to “recruit” and how man he succeeded in doing so.
I imagine they're thinking "Is this crazy motherf*cker going to show up at the office tomorrow with an AR-15 looking for the people he thinks wronged him?"
Nah, I'd bet he's a grifter, not a true believer (not that it matters, in terms of impact). I'm sure everyone in that office would describe him as a perfectly normal dude.
That's the thing about QAnon, it doesn't start from "Bob's yelling about the baby-eating cabal again at lunch," it starts with "Hey, do you want to sign this petition to #SaveTheChildren? It's an anti-sex-trafficking organization. Check out this video about it."
Right, he doesn't believe a word of it, since he's the one inventing it.
Nah, I'd bet he's a grifter, not a true believer (not that it matters, in terms of impact). I'm sure everyone in that office would describe him as a perfectly normal dude.
That's the thing about QAnon, it doesn't start from "Bob's yelling about the baby-eating cabal again at lunch," it starts with "Hey, do you want to sign this petition to #SaveTheChildren? It's an anti-sex-trafficking organization. Check out this video about it."
So, anyone else think his fixation on child sex trafficking is a disturbed psychological response to his own repressed pedophilia?
I hope it’s repressed... maybe someone needs to be checking his hard drives or something.
Lesson numero uno about Trump: everything is a projection. Or at least assume it is a projection until multi source and reputably fact checked otherwise.
I hope it’s repressed... maybe someone needs to be checking his hard drives or something.
Or his basement. Also interview his neighbors. If they say "he's a nice guy, quiet, keeps to himself..." lock his ass up.
Right, he doesn't believe a word of it, since he's the one inventing it.
Maybe it was on gold tablets he found in his back yard.
Prederick wrote:Nah, I'd bet he's a grifter, not a true believer (not that it matters, in terms of impact). I'm sure everyone in that office would describe him as a perfectly normal dude.
That's the thing about QAnon, it doesn't start from "Bob's yelling about the baby-eating cabal again at lunch," it starts with "Hey, do you want to sign this petition to #SaveTheChildren? It's an anti-sex-trafficking organization. Check out this video about it."
So, anyone else think his fixation on child sex trafficking is a disturbed psychological response to his own repressed pedophilia?
I hope it’s repressed... maybe someone needs to be checking his hard drives or something.
They resurrected 8chan as 8kun just to keep QAnon going. 8chan was a cesspool of child porn and other vile shit.
Also, it's just a easy, solid emotional trigger for people. Everybody wants to #SaveTheChildren, and who is going to come out against or try to contextualize the sexual abuse of children? A pedophile, that's who.
Y'know, I saw a video tonight of somebody's cat at the vet just FREAKING OUT, and half the comments are people like "Stop torturing the poor kitty!"
And I realized that explains our current political situation perfectly. A bunch of random internet commenters deciding that they know better than trained professionals.
There was a Q drop this afternoon urging the Qultists to immediately stop identifying as such:
(if you’ve never seen a Q drop before I’ll preempt your obvious question by saying that no, they aren’t all like this, this one is actually more coherent than normal)
Q then quoted another user explaining his justification for this:
So the Qult is potentially going incognito now. This is a dangerous development as it will make it more difficult for critics to track and make it easier to hide the more deranged elements of the conspiracy from new recruits until they’re fully invested.
Friends And Family Members Of QAnon Believers Are Going Through A “Surreal Goddamn Nightmare”
A repeating thing I see in this article is people stuck inside because of the quarantine, with nothing to do but watch Facebook and YouTube all day long.
Facebook and YouTube genuinely have done irreperable damage to society. Like, around the world.
Friends And Family Members Of QAnon Believers Are Going Through A “Surreal Goddamn Nightmare”
A repeating thing I see in this article is people stuck inside because of the quarantine, with nothing to do but watch Facebook and YouTube all day long.
Prederick wrote:Facebook and YouTube genuinely have done irreperable damage to society. Like, around the world.
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