{"id":6800,"date":"2020-08-17T03:09:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T03:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/a-playbook-for-combating-qanon\/"},"modified":"2020-08-17T03:09:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T03:09:58","slug":"a-playbook-for-combating-qanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aviancetechnologies.com\/blog\/a-playbook-for-combating-qanon\/","title":{"rendered":"A playbook for combating QAnon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A playbook for combating QAnon<\/h2>\n

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This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can <\/em>sign up here<\/em> to receive it weekdays.<\/em><\/p>\n

Just describing QAnon \u2014 a sprawling, false theory that there is a \u201cdeep state\u201d of child-molesting Satanists in charge of powerful institutions \u2014 makes me confused.<\/p>\n

But we can\u2019t ignore QAnon, even if we find the conspiracy bizarre. QAnon supporters are co-opting advocacy efforts in areas such as anti-child sex trafficking, believers are poised to get elected to office and followers are committing violence. Elements of QAnon are popping up everywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone realized how big it would become,\u201d said Zarine Kharazian, assistant editor at the Atlantic Council\u2019s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies online misinformation.<\/p>\n

Conspiracies are as old as time, but QAnon has a modern twist: It thrives off internet sites like Facebook and Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I asked Kharazian what the internet companies should do to more effectively combat this conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Stop recommending this content<\/strong>. A lot of people find QAnon-related ideas online because Facebook recommends that they join online groups supporting the conspiracy. This needs to stop, Kharazian said, but it\u2019s also tricky.<\/p>\n

Believers\u2019 ideas have seeped into online groups devoted to parenting or healthy living. That makes it imperative for internet companies to understand the context of online activity. Has that online support group for dads, for example, become a hub for QAnon ideas? (Yes, it is also creepy for Facebook to lurk in a dads\u2019 group.)<\/p>\n

Take down conspiracy influencers. <\/strong>Believers in QAnon pitch people with many followers online to get them to post conspiracy-related material.<\/p>\n

Limiting or blocking these influential accounts, which Kharazian said was starting to happen, \u201cknocks back the conspiracy a couple of steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are pitfalls here, too, she said. If internet companies go too far by doing blanket deletions of many accounts or by banning mentions of QAnon altogether, they play into the conspiracy narrative of information warfare \u2014 and risk silencing some nondangerous discussions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n