Despite 27 months of failed prophecies, the #QAnon family of conspiracy theories continues to soldier on. We wrote about it in 2017 when it crossed over from 4chan to Twitter, and decided it was time for an updated analysis.
#CarryOnMyWaywardConspiracyTheory
cc: @ZellaQuixote
#CarryOnMyWaywardConspiracyTheory
cc: @ZellaQuixote
@ZellaQuixote We downloaded the last ten days worth of tweets containing #QAnon, #WWG1WGA, or #FollowTheWhiteRabbit, yielding 458487 tweets from 75776 accounts. What's up with those big spikes in traffic every few days? #StateOfTheQnion 
@ZellaQuixote Answer: the spikes are swarms of replies containing "Q sent me" or #QSentMe to specific tweets. The tweets being targeted are those linked by whoever is currently posting as Q on 8chan/8kun, and the swarms generally consist of thousands of accounts.
@ZellaQuixote Coordinated reply swarms ain't a new behavior for #QAnon believers, btw. We first saw "Q sent me" spikes in late 2018, and prior to that encountered a Q reply spam campaign called #OpMayflower2018 run via a private Facebook group.
@ZellaQuixote We found some interesting high volume bots hanging around recent #QAnon traffic. You might expect @BWaveResist2020 to be a liberal Twitter account based on name and profile hashtags, but it is in fact a right-wing retweet bot that retweeted 1031 #QAnon tweets in the last 10 days.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 Next up, we have spammy #QAnon bot @AO2Anon, which basically just tweets the same seven hashtags over and over and over accompanied by different memes.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 @AO2Anon We found three perpetual frequent fliers among the more prolific bots with recent #QAnon tweets: @ImmoralReport, @bamma0, and @NewsLinksNet, which until recently was named @TheMAGABot but has received something of a makeover.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 @AO2Anon @ImmoralReport @bamma0 @NewsLinksNet #QAnonsense (and related botting) isn't a phenomenon exclusive to the English-speaking world. @Agrothendick, a #Frexit bot that mostly retweets French content, amplified 62 #QAnon/#WWG1WGA/#FollowTheWhiteRabbit tweets in the last 10 days.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 @AO2Anon @ImmoralReport @bamma0 @NewsLinksNet @AGrothendick A Japanese #QAnon bot, @QAJF_bot, also joins the party. We ran across this one before when studying tweets linking Q website qmap(dot)pub. This particular account has a strong focus on Michael Flynn.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 @AO2Anon @ImmoralReport @bamma0 @NewsLinksNet @AGrothendick @QAJF_bot Where (other than 8chan) do the Q faithful go to keep up on news? Based on the websites linked and the YouTube videos shared in #QAnon tweets, they get most of their information from other Q believers; qmap(dot)pub and Q-related YouTube channels comprise the majority of sources.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 @AO2Anon @ImmoralReport @bamma0 @NewsLinksNet @AGrothendick @QAJF_bot Finally, who and what are #QAnon tweets actually about? This table shows the 30 most common proper names (adjusting for variants) in Q tweets for the last 10 days. Highlights include Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, God, George Soros, Robert Mueller, and the coronavirus.
@ZellaQuixote @BWaveResist2020 @AO2Anon @ImmoralReport @bamma0 @NewsLinksNet @AGrothendick @QAJF_bot Footnote: In the "dubious advice" department, automated fake #resistance account @BWaveResist2020 has a tweet suggesting that people make bots if they get shadowbanned on Twitter.
