Gaming the Players – QAnon
Have you ever wondered about the birth of bizarre conspiracy theories like QAnon on-line? And why, despite the farfetched fabric of these stories, so many people forsake their family and friends — the people they know — to join a band of strangers united in fervent yet false beliefs? So did we. Turns out that besides the usual online elements, i.e., sites like 8 kun – previously 8chan – and social media platforms, there are some other unusual building blocks like LARPs needed for conspiracy theories to grow and flourish. LARP stands for Live Action Role Play games, which straddle the line between fantasy and reality. Join us as we talk to David Troy, a network analyst and disinformation specialist who has studied how communities form online. He has collaborated with researchers and analysts from around the world to not only understand disinformation, misinformation, radicalization, and extremism, but to actually expose and fight it.
Hosted by: Alexa Raad and Leslie Daigle.
Related material:
- TEDxMidAtlantic — Dismantling QAnon; available on YouTub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QbEcG8O-L8%3A
- Vermeule & Sunstein, Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures, (2009). https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/10880581
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