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QAnon refers to a set of far-right, conspiratorial ideologies that have risen in popularity in the U.S. since their initial promotion in 2017 on the 4chan internet message board. A central narrative element of QAnon is that a powerful group…
The QAnon conspiracy posits that Satan-worshiping Democrats operate a covert child sex-trafficking operation, which Donald Trump is destined to expose and annihilate. Emblematic of the ease with which political misconceptions can spread…
Online communities are groups of people who interact primarily via the Internet, often sharing common interests. Some of these groups, particularly supporters of Q who created the far-right conspiracy theory known as QAnon, are highly toxic…
The QAnon conspiracy theory claims that a cabal of (literally) blood-thirsty politicians and media personalities are engaged in a war to destroy society. By interpreting cryptic "drops" of information from an anonymous insider calling…
There has been concern about the proliferation of the "QAnon" conspiracy theory on Facebook, but little is known about how its misleading narrative propagated on the world's largest social media platform. Thus, the present research analyzed…
Social media provide a fertile ground where conspiracy theories and radical ideas can flourish, reach broad audiences, and sometimes lead to hate or violence beyond the online world itself. QAnon represents a notable example of a political…
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory whose followers largely organize online. In this work, we use web crawls seeded from two of the largest QAnon hotbeds on the Internet, Voat and 8kun, to build a QAnon-centered domain-based hyperlink…
Widespread conspiracy theories may significantly impact our society. This paper focuses on the QAnon conspiracy theory, a consequential conspiracy theory that started on and disseminated successfully through social media. Our work…
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that became popular and mainstream over the past few years. Worryingly, the QAnon conspiracy theory has implications in the real world, with supporters of the theory participating in real-world violent…
Online discussion platforms offer a forum to strengthen and propagate belief in misinformed conspiracy theories. Yet, they also offer avenues for conspiracy theorists to express their doubts and experiences of cognitive dissonance. Such…
Online social media foster the creation of active communities around shared narratives. Such communities may turn into incubators for conspiracy theories -- some spreading violent messages that could sharpen the debate and potentially harm…
Do we live in a "Golden Age of Conspiracy Theories?" In the last few decades, conspiracy theories have proliferated on the Internet with some having dangerous real-world consequences. A large contingent of those who participated in the…
QAnon is an umbrella conspiracy theory that encompasses a wide spectrum of people. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped raise the QAnon conspiracy theory to a wide-spreading movement, especially in the US. Here, we study users' dynamics on…
As radical messaging has proliferated on social networking sites, platforms like Reddit have been used to host support groups, including support communities for the families and friends of radicalized individuals. This study examines the…
The social media platform "Parler" has emerged into a prominent fringe community where a significant part of the user base are self-reported supporters of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of elites controls global…
A series of social media posts signed under the pseudonym "Q", started a movement known as QAnon, which led some of its most radical supporters to violent and illegal actions. To identify the person(s) behind Q, we evaluate the coincidence…
In recent years, radicalization is being increasingly attempted on video-sharing platforms. Previous studies have been proposed to identify online radicalization using generic social context analysis, without taking into account…
Identifying and characterizing disinformation in political discourse on social media is critical to ensure the integrity of elections and democratic processes around the world. Persistent manipulation of social media has resulted in…
Voat.co was a news aggregator website that shut down on December 25, 2020. The site had a troubled history and was known for hosting various banned subreddits. This paper presents a dataset with over 2.3M submissions and 16.2M comments…
At the latest since the advent of the Internet, disinformation and conspiracy theories have become ubiquitous. Recent examples like QAnon and Pizzagate prove that false information can lead to real violence. In this motivation statement for…