Thread by @_MAArgentino

1/ Was great to present along side @sjacks26 @Patrick_A_James and Emily Thompson. Thank you to @ErinSaltman @GIFCT_official and @techvsterrorism for organizing this. Here is the infographic I used for my slides "The Nexus Between QAnon & Violent Extremism"

2/ I think it is still important to make the connection between Pizzagate and QAnon. As @QOrigins has mentioned the pizzagate conspiracy theory was mentioned 47,027 times on /pol/ the year before Q’s first posts.

3/ As @QOrigins explains “Q simply repackaged what right-wing media was already discussing” Therefore, a lot of the Pizzagate folks also became QAnon folks and brought those ideas into it with them.

4/ QAnon’s central claim that members of the “Deep State” are running an international ring of pedophiles has its origins in Pizzagate. And the first instance of violent extremism from this ecosystem was from Pizzagate with the Comet PingPong incident.

5/ According to a recent study by start there have been 61 instances of QAnon criminality. However, only 8% of these were successful violent plots. Though QAnon can lead to violence, its inherent harm is more that violent plots. start.umd.edu/publication/qa…

6/ Additionally it is important to note that new Radicalization Pipelines have formed since the mass deplatforming of QAnon following Jan 6. What this means is though it appears QAnon has died down, it's not the case, it's still growing and thriving on a multiplicity of platforms

7/ This means that methods of analysis need to change and be adapted, but also how we make temperature checks of the movement as we cannot solely rely on data from mainstream platforms to understand what is going on in the movement.

8/ Also, this means that mainstream platforms have an important role as caretakers of the user base, for using the banning or censorship approach on some of these adherents will very likely push them down the radicalization pipeline and no one knows where they'll end up

9/ New policies and content moderation approaches need to be taken, as well as considering multisectoral partnerships to develop informed policies. Additionally the smaller platforms that are willing to tackle this problem will need help from the expert community.

10/ With new radicalization pipelines, there is a potential for more QAnon violence, especially as the deplatforming of QAnon has created an environment where adherents can experiment with blending QAnon ideologies with the ideologies of other extremist movements.