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Ben Collins Profile picture
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22 Dec, 7 tweets, 3 min read
New from me:

As Trump meets with QAnon influencers, the conspiracy theory's adherents beg for dictatorship
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
The pro-Trump internet has been calling for Trump to "#crosstherubicon," a reference to Caesar kickstarting a dictatorship.

This was a direct push from Ron Watkins, who runs the QAnon hub where Q posts, last week. Now it's being pushed by the Arizona GOP.
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
It's hard to express how divorced from reality the pro-Trump internet has become.

Some followers believe Trump is conducting a ground war in MAINE, and that he dropped a bomb killing 50k uniformed Chinese soldiers. Tens of thousands of YouTube views.
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
I called the Maine National Guard and, obviously, contrary to QAnon rumors, there is no secret Chinese invasion of Maine.

But the pro-Trump internet is alight with new calls for dictatorship and fantasies about Trump as an irremovable wartime president.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
Trump-saving fantasies from one radio show keep showing up in Twitter's trending topics because QAnon followers keep pushing them.

Hal Turner's radio show invented a Chinese invasion of America, plus a secret screaming match between SCOTUS justices.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
The ties between the increasingly separatist QAnon rhetoric and the president's inner-circle are starting to worry GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman.

“I’m losing friends over a straight-up cult. It’s an idiocracy based on a digital prophet.”
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…
Anyways, the line between the separatist QAnon talk and the president has never been more direct.

QAnon followers have never been more delusional, Flynn and Powell are main characters in the Q universe, and they have the president's ear.

nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…

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Ben Collins Profile picture
9 Dec
It's better to view Q as a network or community that moves in unison without objection.

They've moved on from the Satanic child eating, and from Q himself, as the president tries to overturn the election.

Now, they look to 8kun's Ron Watkins, and they're targeting democracy.
This community existed before Q, but it was a series of disparate political movements without a centralized messaging strategy. Some anti-vaxxers, some NWO/InfoWars people, some Tea Party people.

It is now a formalized network graph used for targeted messaging and harassment.
The irony that this "American patriot movement" is run by a guy in Japan operating a site otherwise used by diaper fetishists is, in fact, lost on a lot of these people.

People are still hanging on Q's every word, and look to Q influencers for guidance in his absence.
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
8 Dec
New Zealand's government found that the white supremacist Christchurch mass shooter was "not a frequent commentator on extreme right-wing sites."

Instead, it was the YouTube radicalization pathway, "a significant source of information and inspiration."
theguardian.com/world/live/202…
What was incredible, covering YouTube-abetted terror at the time, was the lies, the obfuscation, the impossibility of getting answers from YouTube.

Astronomical harm that I saw with my own eyes, and I was viewed as crazy and melodramatic for reporting on it.

Until Christchurch.
The next few months became watching a car wreck in slow motion. All of these kids radicalized by YouTube, then sent off to 8chan or 4chan or one of the more niche, dumber forums, begging each other to kill for the cause.

By the summer, I'd wake up on weekends and expect them.
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
1 Dec
The guy who ran 8chan, who spent the last several years in the Philippines, is driving a harassment campaign against a random IT professional in an effort to further the Dominion conspiracy theory.

He's doing it on this website, using the army of QAnon fans he's built for years.
This is not just a particularly amoral way to boost a dying conspiracy theory. And it's not just a terrible thing for democracy.

It's also just a rotten thing to do to a random fellow human, who woke up today the target of horrific threats just for doing his job.
I got started on this beat because an old college buddy of mine became a target of one of these conspiracy theories in the weeks after the worst days of his life.

His girlfriend was killed on live TV. YouTube and Google told the world it was staged.
thedailybeast.com/what-do-you-sa…
Read 6 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
24 Nov
The funniest possible TV show is just a straight timeline of QAnon, but the main character is a random civil servant watching it unfold.

—"Finally, undeniable proof of the baby eating. Now the important part: Wait for around for 3 years."

—"Shouldn't we arrest them?"

—"…no."
"Mr. Trump is ready to publicly arrest the cabal for kidnapping and murdering children."

"Okay, cool, let's do this thing."

"No, we must allude to it with vague poems on a site otherwise used by adult diaper fetishists."
"Look, guys, I don't know about you, but the president taking down a cabal of child eaters seems urgent and… important? I really think he should be taking credit for this publicly instead of haikus on the diaper site. He'd be a hero."

"No, Mr. Trump is simply too humble."
Read 4 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
16 Nov
Hey Glenn,

Good to hear from you. I’ve got a few questions.

Should I not have talked to all of those doctors back in April and May who told me disinformation was killing their patients and ravaging their ERs?

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
Should I not have discovered that secret meeting between Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg a year ago this week?

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
Read 11 tweets
Ben Collins Profile picture
13 Nov
Here's a thread how the Dominion conspiracy theory went from QAnon to the president:

Q, the secret government insider they believe is taking down the Democrat child-eating cabal. didn't post for more than a week after the election.

This left a vacuum.

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
That vacuum was filled in by random posts on 4chan, plus QAnon influencers on YouTube and Twitter, like the son of 8kun owner Ron Watkins.

Chan posters and Watkins floated the false idea that votes could be "flipped" using a Dominion's vote software.

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
Since Watkins' dad owns 8kun and promotes QAnon for a living, his audience is enormously Q-heavy.

With Q absent, they started spamming his conspiracy theory on Twitter, like a substitute Q.

nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…
Read 6 tweets

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