Overview: Social Web

Cory focusing not on the content of conspiracy theories, but "the significance of those beliefs", as we rarely go beyond dismissing "irrational people as having irrational beliefs... a mistake. The stories we tell one another are a kind of Ouija board... " telling us not about reality, but revealing "our internal, unspoken…

Every day, Times reporters will chronicle and debunk false and misleading information that is going viral online... Whole collection of individual stories, all worth a look. Some key points:Twitter flagged half of President Trump’s 14 posts on Thursday for including disputed or misleading information. But hundreds of other accounts - over 150 of w…

There are two possible reasons why we are not talking as much about foreign interference. Both could be true. Only one is good news.

A few days after Facebook, Youtube bans "content that targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence... such as QAnon or Pizzagate", although they may except "news coverage on these issues or content discussing them without targeting individuals or protected groups".&q;…

“It’s so easy to feel you’re special or in on something.” - James Wolfe, 45, who was "introduced [to Qanon] by a friend to the idea in late 2017... [when he] was recently unemployed and recovering from a serious physical injury", and quickly "started spending as much as eight hours a day" before recovering "from QAnon aft…

"perhaps it’s not the runup to the election we should be chiefly concerned about"Someone trying to mess with America probably realises they can't get Trump re-elected, so they are better off focusing on the post-election period, which offers a "better chance to push more Americans to extremes than ever before". Identifies …

With more than a dozen congressional candidates appearing on ballots in November, Qanon is mainstream. While it looks like a lot of other conspiracy theories, this research provides a fascinating look at how the conspiracy's "Bakers" co-create their knowledgescape."QAnon doesn’t simply offer readers insider insight into current…

All forms of content related to QAnon are banned, excepting posts from individual profiles, "even if they contain no violent content" - a significant update of Facebook's anti-Q August sweep - effectively treating it as an “identified Militarized Social Movement... no different than an extremist militia group, but not quite on the l…

Short video, filmed at a Trump rally, on two major disinfo trends: the Joe Biden earpiece, and Q.The "smoking gun" video - flagged false by factcheckers - "shared more than 22,000 times and viewed 800,000 times by Thursday night... one of the most widespread false narratives his team had handled this year"... another video &quo;…

"the platform promoted violent conspiracy theories and gave safe harbor to militia groups" like the “Kenosha Guard”, which issued a “call to arms” on Facebook which, despite two people reporting it, remained online. It was only removed by the group themselves after 2 people were killed by a 17 yr old.The level of employee pushback at Fac…

This is a piece for people who have been part of the Q Anon movement... beginning to get tired ... starting to get skeptical... Q mostly stopped making specific predictions after a series of embarrassing failures... demanding that we all Trust the Plan and stop asking why Q is always wrong... There’s a reason you got scammed... why did you keep be…