WaPo Takes Swipe at Q, Chans, Pizzagate, and more Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/09/18/how-conspiracy-theories-spread-internets-darkest-corners/?utm_term=.d5f189688418 "By Travis View  Travis View is a marketer, writer, and conspiracy theory researcher.  September 18 at 10:54 AM  On July 7, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and frequent Fox News contributor, published a tweet that contained startling but inaccurately sourced statistics about the alleged growth of human trafficking arrests under the Trump administration. It stated there were 1,952 human trafficking arrests through all of 2016, but in the first half of 2018 authorities had already made an astounding 5,987 human trafficking arrests. Kirk’s tweet falsely claimed these figures came from the Justice Department. Kirk deleted the tweet shortly after the true source of its figures was revealed: the notorious imageboard 8chan, home of the QAnon conspiracy “researchers” of the /qresearch/ board. The board’s “research,” which consisted of sloppily compiling information from nationwide news reports about human trafficking and child pornography arrests and charges, seeks to support a core belief of the QAnon conspiracy theory — that Trump is secretly battling a corrupt deep state and an evil cabal of pedophile Satan-worshiping elites. QAnon believers think if they can show that more human traffickers are being arrested, it will support the baseless notion that Trump is finally putting an end to long-protected trafficking rings used by these elites. Though Kirk may not have realized it at first, he had bought into the collective fantasy of some of the Internet’s most outré Trump fans. People sometimes dismiss the “anons” — the term users of the chan message boards employ to describe themselves — as a group of amoral pranksters. 4chan anons, for example, gained notoriety for playing an elaborate game of capture the flag with actor Shia LaBeouf. But 8chan’s success in spreading QAnon suggests they are something more significant. Namely, they represent a political force that can craft resonant narratives and push them through major social media networks into the mainstream. They sometimes half-jokingly refer to their community’s combination of intense focus and tech savviness in the pursuit of real-world impact as “weaponized autism.” But it is more than a joke. It can drive national conversations. On Jan. 19, users of 8chan’s /qresearch/ board were rallying fellow QAnon believers for a day-old digital canvassing campaign. The campaign’s participants, who were anonymous to everyone, including each other, had specific and ambitious goals. They wanted to make the hashtag #releasethememo trend on Twitter, with the ultimate goal of making the “Nunes memo” a major point of discussion in the mainstream media. This, they hoped, would lead to the public release of the memo. One anon wrote, “NEW MISSION FROM Q - RELEASE THE MEMES, RELEASE THE KRAKEN.” Another post laid out a “BATTLE PLAN FOR #ReleaseTheMemo.” Tactics in this battle plan included concrete steps like, “Tweet all Republican members of the House Intel Committee with memes of #releasethememo.” They also offered a suggestion for increasing visibility of their tweets: “Anon heard changing your name lifts shadowbans. Worth a try.” (“Shadowbanning” is a reference Twitter’s practice of limiting the reach of certain Twitter accounts because of spammy or abusive behavior or quality filters. Twitter does not use this term, and the practice is often exaggerated by Twitter users who claim they are being “censored.”) [Democracy requires trust. But Trump is making us all into conspiracy theorists.] The anon who authored that “battle plan” included a link to a collection of memes to spread on social media generally, plus a separate zipped file that included the same memes formatted specifically for Twitter. The post also linked to online tools to track hashtag trends, enabling other anons to monitor the campaign’s progress. Hundreds of posts from other anons offered words of encouragement, speculation and updates on individual efforts. One of these posts said, “#releasethememo is starting to pick up again . . . seeing a lot in my feed and getting retweets.” It was, in short, an well-organized and media-savvy operation. They had a specific goal, a message about government corruption, community-generated media assets and a focused media strategy. Everyone who participated was a motivated volunteer who simply wanted to get the message out. All of these efforts were inspired by the mysterious 8chan poster known as “Q,” whom they believe is a high-level government official close to Trump and releases information in cryptic messages known as “Q Drops.” QAnon believers thought the release of Nunes memo would finally expose the corruption of the “deep state” and possibly even destroy the mainstream media. (cont'd)