Running Head: FAKE NEWS CRITICISM ASSIGNMENT 1

Fake News Criticism: Examining QAnon

Mania in the Age of Trumpism

Hana Khayry

900181524

JRMC 2208-02

Dr. Marwa Al-Mut’afy

December 15th, 2020

The American University in Cairo

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FAKE NEWS CRITICISM ASSIGNMENT

Fake News Criticism: Examining QAnon

Mania in the Age of Trumpism

QAnon! A conspiracy theory that derives grounds from elements that appear to be

outside of this realm and by which Democratic politicians, billionaires, and celebrities,

ranging from Hilary Clinton, Opera Winfrey, to Tom Hanks, are alleged to be satanic

members of a far-reaching child trafficking ring who harvest and consume the blood of

children to ‘prolong’ their lifespan (The Daily Show 2020). Juxtaposing these ‘villains’

though is Donald Trump, incumbent president of the US and ‘savior’ of children who will

bring those miscreants to justice, according to proponents of the conspiracy theorists

(Guardian News 2020; Velshi 2020). The genesis of this theory can be traced back to October

2017 when an anonymous user known as “Q” posted a spate of bogus content on a message

board called “4chan” and purported to have a “level of US security approval known as “Q

clearance”” (Wendling 2020). These falsehoods later became known as “Q drops” or

“breadcrumbs” and are eagerly awaited by QAnon dogmatists who assemble behind the

slogan “Where we go one we go all” and its popularized acronym-turned-hashtag

“WWG1WGA” (Wendling 2020). A pattern of romanization and antagonism, moreover, can

be detected within this QAnon mania, with the preponderance of the allegations crafted to

glorify Trump, who embraced this madness, and vilify, and sometimes literally demonize, his

opponents. Accordingly, this conspiracy theory epitomizes a spiderweb of disinformation, or

deliberate misinformation, and propaganda that have been woven to arouse suspicions around

certain members of society. Along with the aforementioned hashtag, it weaponizes hashtags

like “SaveOurChildren” and “The_Great_Awakening”, appealing to the audiences’ pathos

and ethos by manipulating their need to belong as well as fears for the safety of their and

others’ children (Guardian News 2020).

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FAKE NEWS CRITICISM ASSIGNMENT

The conspiracy theory is widely propagated across social media with common social

media users, celebrities, and even influential politicians sharing it; QAnon content were

found to generate significant traffic on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube. In fact,

there are copious Facebook groups where thousands of QAnon fanatics convene to

disseminate their fictitious manifesto, but that is not all they do. Some QAnon conspiracy

theorists, many of whom was arrested, would collude to organize offline attacks on those they

believe are “covering up for p[e]dophiles”, galvanizing the host social networking services

(SNSs) Twitter, Reddit, Facebook as well as its subsidiary Instagram, and YouTube to ban

and undertake mass removal of content deemed as QAnon-related (Spring 2020; Wendling

2020). Though, these red flags do not seem to be a deterrent for the incumbent US president

who frequently retweets QAnon supporters and lauds politicians such as Georgia’s candidate

for Congress Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avid supporter of the conspiracy theory and Trump-

proclaimed “future Republican star”, who speculates that the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was

faked (Wolffe 2020). Fortunately, there are various means by which the spread of QAnon

conspiracy content could be curtailed, from the sides of both the host platform and the media

consumer. SNSs should proceed to remove the content of conspiracy theories as well as cease

to recommend this content to groups they statistically analyzed as having predilections

towards said content, the latter being part of a process called “efficient filtering”. From the

audience’s perspective, media users should become more cautious when approaching media

content. They should check the source and the author, evaluate the content of the message,

investigate whether there are corroborating sources, and most importantly, monitor their own

biases. Incorporating these measures into our lifestyles would help safeguard us from being

deluged with and internalizing unfounded content and potentially partaking in their

dissemination.
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FAKE NEWS CRITICISM ASSIGNMENT

References

Guardian News. (2020, September 29). QAnon: The Rise and Roots of a Baseless Conspiracy

Theory [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYZBxH4I_GA.

Spring, M. (2020, October 6). Facebook Bans QAnon Conspiracy Theory Accounts Across

All Platforms. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54443878

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. (2020, August 25). QAnon- If you Don’t Know, Now You

Know [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv7BvLBz8MI

Velshi, A. (2020, August 15). The Rise of QAnon: ‘Within a couple clicks, people go down

these very bad paths’ [Video]. MSNBC. https://www.msnbc.com/ali-

velshi/watch/the-rise-of-qanon-within-a-couple-clicks-people-go-down-these-very-

bad-paths-90124357828

Wendling, M. (2020, August 20). QAnon: What is it and where did it come from? BBC

News. https://www.bbc.com/news/53498434

Wolffe, R. (2020, October 17). Donald Trump is the QAnon president. And he’s proud of it.

The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/17/donald-

trump-is-the-qanon-president-and-hes-proud-of-it