CONSPIRACY THEORIESToll of QAnon on Families of Followers
Political conspiracy theories have long found receptive audiences in the U.S., often on the fringes of society. Among the best-known today is QAnon, a set of fabricated claims that a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controls American politics and media. At its center is an anonymous oracle known as “Q.” New book by Nieman Fellow explores pain, frustration in efforts to help loved ones break free of hold of conspiracy theorists.
The 1969 moon landing? Fake. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy? Cuba really did it. Thomas Jefferson’s bitterly contested election in 1800? Choreographed by hidden hands.
Political conspiracy theories have long found receptive audiences in the U.S., often on the fringes of society. Among the best-known today is QAnon, a set of fabricated claims that a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controls American politics and media. At its center is an anonymous oracle known as “Q.”
Since 2021, QAnon belief among Americans jumped from 14 percent to 23 percent, while the percentage of skeptics declined from 40 percent to 29 percent, according to a national survey published last fall by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
A new book, “The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family,” delves into the private lives of some believers, chronicling the painful emotional and financial toll this elaborate conspiracy has taken on ordinary people.
Author Jesselyn Cook, a tech reporter who joins Harvard this fall as a 2024-2025 Nieman Fellow, spoke to the Gazette about why so many have fallen under the spell of QAnon and why the Big Tech platforms are only partly to blame. Interview has been edited for clarity and length.
How did QAnon go mainstream and what was so compelling about it that you became interested in the human toll it took?
October 2017 was the first post from Q on the online forum 4chan. Very few people knew it existed back then. This was around the time Pizzagate [a false conspiracy theory about a pedophile ring run by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign from a Washington, D.C., pizzeria] was starting to blow up with the 2016 election.
The platforms that it migrated onto didn’t do much. They allowed it to spread and grow. By the time Facebook and then Twitter and YouTube took action, most people already knew the name QAnon.
I had been lurking on some of these online forums for a while, watching QAnon in these dark corners of the internet, feeling like it was a little maddening to see it unfold, and no one really talking about it.
