compared to other fringe groups QAnon members consumed the least diverse variety of information sources, relying disproportionately on mainstream conservative sources.
insights into how this new political movement is dissimilar to the far-right or the far-left but shares offline interests with the far-right.
Unlike the far-right and the far-left that both share and consume less mainstream news, QAnon’s increasing reference to mainstream conservative content should be of concern. Mainstream right-wing communities and individuals must reconcile with the role they have played and will continue to play in shaping the QAnon movement. QAnon poses a significant threat to social and political institutions, and its growth into mainstream politics and news media suggests that it may be here to stay.
Jones uses segments from Sky News Australia in his program, particularly those from Sky’s Outsiders program, as “evidence” from mainstream media organisations to support his conspiracy theories.
The bite-sized videos carry advertising – and Sky shares the revenue with platforms like YouTube.
Last November, tech journalist Cam Wilson revealed in Business Insider that Sky News Australia had successfully built a Fox News-like online operation in Australia that dwarfs its terrestrial audience numbers. On YouTube, their videos have been viewed more than 500m times, more than any other Australian media organisation.
Wilson also reported that Sky’s Facebook posts had more total interactions in October than the ABC News, SBS News, 7News Australia, 9 News and 10 News First pages, and more shares than all of them combined.
The French state agency responsible for tackling sectarian movements, MIVILUDES, has received some 15 reports over recent weeks raising the alarm about the rise of QAnon in France, Le Figaro reported.
The DéQodeurs website offers links to “information” including articles relaying fake news based on QAnon tropes – such as the baseless claim that in 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about to release documents proving the existence of a massive paedophile ring in Washington DC.
While it tends to eschew such lurid narratives, anti-vaccine sentiment is relatively widespread in France. An Ipsos poll published in November found that 46 percent of French adults said they would refuse to receive a Covid-19 vaccine – compared to 21 percent in the UK. A 2019 Gallup poll found that one in three French people thought all vaccines are dangerous – the highest proportion of respondents to say so in 144 countries surveyed.
QAnon’s French sympathisers are far more ideologically heterogenous than those in the US, St Denny observed: “QAnon in France is definitely not the monopoly of far-right sympathisers as it might be in the US. Its anti-government underpinnings have made the conspiracy theory attractive to a very disparate collection of groups and individuals including established conspiracy theorists, some fringes of the Yellow Vests movement, and some of the more conspiracy-oriented among the alternative health movement.”
In France, the Yellow Jacket movement has embraced the American movement. In Italy, backers hail from the anti-vaccine community. In Britain, adherents draw from Brexit followers.
The FFTCUK Facebook group has now amassed more than 13,000 members.
People were dressed in QAnon shirts or ones displaying the slogan “WWG1WGA”. Short for “Where we go one we go all”, it is the best-known rallying cry for QAnon believers.
Alexandra Arkhipova, an anthropologist at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration who tracks the spread of online conspiracy theories, has found that while there are fewer explicit references to QAnon on Russian-language social media than Covid-19 denialism and 5G fears, its prevalence is spreading.
Data gathered by Arkhipova since August reveals thousands of Russian-language social media posts about QAnon. On VKontakte and Telegram — an encrypted messaging service popular in Russia – groups dedicated to spreading the conspiracy theory in Russia have grown to include tens of thousands of members.
Last year the Institute for Strategic Dialogue released a report that found QAnon’s following had grown considerably in Australia during 2020, with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter driving increased engagement.
The report found Australia was the fourth largest country for QAnon activity, behind the US, UK and Canada. Its presence in Australia is also evident on less mainstream sites. For example as Canadian QAnon research Marc-Andre Argentino has pointed out, there were at least six Australian Q “research boards” on the site 8kun with about 4,000 posts by January last year. That had increased to 11 boards by the start of 2021.
Last year, Guardian Australia revealed QAnon had found a follower in Tim Stewart, a family friend of the prime Scott Morrison. Stewart was behind one of Australia’s largest QAnon-linked accounts, BurnedSpy34.
SkySilk, a Web infrastructure company based outside of Los Angeles, is now hosting Parler, SkySilk’s chief executive, Kevin Matossian, confirmed to NPR in an interview.
Matossian refused to comment on the terms of the arrangement, or under what conditions SkySilk will do business with Parler, which was heavily used by the rioters in connection with the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
In new content guidelines released by Parler on Monday, the company says it will deploy a “privacy-preserving process” using an algorithm and human moderators to police content that threatens or incites violence.
Additionally, Parler says there will be a “trolling filter” in which content that attacks someone based on race, sex, sexual orientation or religion will be covered up. Yet those who want to view the content will be allowed by clicking through the filter.
Mark Meckler, one of the early creators of the Tea Party movement and now Parler’s interim CEO, said the platform has been rebuilt on independent technology and is “not reliant on so-called ‘Big Tech’ for its operations.”
Indeed, Parler has turned to Web infrastructure companies that have welcomed extremist and hate-filled websites, including Epik, a firm based outside of Seattle that supports Parler’s domain, as well as sites including InfoWars, BitChute and Patriots.win, previously known as The Donald.
Misinformation and disinformation are rife, but so far it’s been seen as a challenge for policy-makers and big tech, including social media platforms.
The sheer volume of data being created makes it hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. From destroying 5G towers to conspiracies like QAnon and unfounded concern about election fraud, distrust is becoming the default – and this can have incredibly damaging effects on society.
So far, the tech sector – primarily social media companies, given that their platforms enable fake news to spread exponentially – have tried to implement some measures, with varying levels of success. For example, WhatsApp has placed a stricter limit on its message-forwarding capability and Twitter has begun to flag misleading posts.
the rise of tech startups that are exploring ways to detect and stem the flow of disinformation, such Right of Reply, Astroscreen and Logically.