The latest American and European elections confirmed the success of the extreme right, and in many cases, the affirmation of conspiracy theories in the public imagination. Although different from each other, the propaganda guidelines of these conservative parties are guided by two cardinal points: the fight against immigration and the use of conspiracies as catalysts for consensus. This is a process that has been underway for several years, which has QAnon as an incubator, an extremist movement born in 2017 on the 4chan wall.
To understand the reasons for its success, researchers from the nonprofit organization Lighthouse Reports and the international reporting collective Bellingcat conducted an analysis of more than one hundred million social posts that tell how QAnon has not only crossed American borders, but which has also consolidated outside the digital sphere. 2024 was the year that brought voters the most to the polls, and at the same time, the twelve months in which ‘Made in the USA’ ideas proliferated the most in the European cultural sphere: satanic plots discussed by local and national politicians, anecdotes about alleged children kidnapped by the secret service and, more recently, theories that deny climate change.
Researchers and reporters monitored Telegram, one of the favorite platforms of followers of Q, the mysterious and mythological creator of QAnon, the theory factory of the global “alt-right.” According to several analysts, behind Q would be James Arthur Watkins and his son Ronald, who control the site 8kun, once known as 8chan, where, in addition to QAnon, Nazi content, child pornography and what they considered “sources of inspiration” were shared. for perpetrators of some of the latest mass murders in the United States.
A strategy that works
The technique is always the same: once the topic is identified, such as a ‘climate crisis’, a series of keywords are identified as the basis of a story, and then amplified by using influencers. “We discovered that radical theories spread thanks to the skillful use of techniques of marketing conventional: exploit conversation breaks on social networks to introduce new topics, increase traffic by taking advantage of social networks influencers and diversify income sources,” write Lighthouse Reports researchers.
It is a system that has alternative media as its axis and traditional media as its political object. Platforms and content selection algorithms provide the ideal ecosystem for these narratives to flourish, because they allow them to spread among layers of the population with the most similar cultural and psychological physiognomy. The ideal profile is people with a predisposition to conspiratorial thinking, usually prone to populist and violent positions.
In this context, Traditional media play a role in conspiracy theories to the extent that, even contradicting them, they insert them into the public debate. Thus, local conspiracies become international phenomena, adding fuel to the global fire. In 2022, the two research organizations documented the rise of QAnon in Europe, with Germany playing a central role as a superspreader, and the pandemic driving QAnon theories in Italy. The results of this analysis then led the researchers to expand the scope, identifying the influencers and alternative media as crucial elements in the propagation. Even stories that may seem unconnected increase the specific weight of the theories; QAnon acts as glue and megaphone, not only generating new conspiracy theories, but connecting them together.
The electoral campaign has generated an unprecedented collection of lies: from rhino murders to victories in Formula 1, to plots to assassinate political adversaries.
The catalyst for dissent
To understand how certain events act as catalysts we have to go back to February 18, 2023, in what appears to be a spontaneous protest with various groups gathering in the streets of Oxford: climate deniers, amateur conspiracists and other citizens enraged by the “traffic restrictions” arising from the urban plan “Cities in 15 minutes”; an ideal that consists of centering all goods and services in the center, so that they are accessible for the benefit of the environment but also the quality of life of those who live there. The common denominator of these Protestant groups was not only anger, but also the strategy and the cultural sphere of which they are part.
Links to the protest stream, initially put online by Children Health Defense, were shared more than 23,000 times on QAnon channels and garnered more than a million views in the months following the rally. According to analysis by Lighthouse and Bellingcat, as restrictions on topics such as COVID and the war in Ukraine were lifted, followers of these channels were directed towards a new target: the climate crisis.
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