Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it’s causing, and what we should do about it. The conspiracy movement QAnon has been around for nearly four years, and it’s never been more popular. But QAnon influencers and their followers now appear to be disavowing the group, telling anyone who’ll listen that “there is no QAnon.” At first glance, this might seem like members of QAnon are finally coming to their senses and realizing that former President Donald Trump will not return to power any minute to unmask a Satanic, child sex-trafficking ring run by liberal elites. But the reality is that surface-level QAnon disavowal is an effort by high-profile influencers to distance the conspiracy theory from the past few months of negative media coverage. “After January 6, the QAnon brand was badly tarnished,” the anonymous founder of the Q Origins Project, which seeks to document how the movement came about, told VICE News. He added that by “claiming that QAnon was never really a thing,” believers were trying to get rid of their bad reputation. But QAnon members seem to have forgotten that they’ve been referring to themselves both in name and ideology as “QAnon” for years, before the label became toxic. The name “QAnon” has been used since the anonymous leader “Q” first appeared on the message board 4chan. “Q” was the poster, and the “anons” were the anonymous 4chan users who followed the posts. Since then, the name has been used to describe not just the person posting the cryptic messages but also the wider movement, which relies on followers’ interpretations of Q’s clues, something previously unseen in conspiracy movements.
via vice: Why QAnon Followers Are Suddenly Saying There’s No Such Thing as QAnon
