►
Description
Presenter: Alice Marwick
Bio: Alice E. Marwick is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Principal Researcher at the Center for Information, Technology and Public Life, which she co-founded, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She studies the social, political, and cultural implications of popular social media technologies, and is currently investigating the relationship between disinformation and far-right online radicalization.
A
Now
it
is
my
pleasure
to
introduce
Dr
marwick
to
the
team.
So
let
me
do
that
very
quickly.
Very
briefly,
and
of
course
you
will
hear
from
Dr
marwick
and
a
lot
of
interesting
research
that
she's
doing
Dr
Morwick
is
an
associate
professor
in
the
department
of
communication
and
principal
researcher
at
the
center
for
information
technology
and
public
life,
which
she
co-founded
at
the
University
of
North
Carolina
at
Chapel
Hill.
A
She
studies
the
social,
political
and
cultural
implications
of
popular
social
media
Technologies
and
is
currently
investigating
the
relationship
between
disinformation
and
far-right
online
radicalization,
a
topic
that
is
of
Keen
Keen
interest
to
the
group
and,
of
course,
to
the
nation
and
the
world.
So
the
floor
is
yours.
Dr,
marwick
and
I
would
also
request
everyone
to
mute
yourself.
Please
feel
free
to
use
the
chat
window.
A
B
Thank
you
so
much
for
that
nice
introduction
and
thanks
for
having
me
before
I
share
my
screen.
I
just
so
I'm
a
qualitative
social
scientist
in
a
sort
of
humanity,
social
science
program,
but
I
did
my
postdoc
at
Microsoft
research,
so
I'm
very
familiar
with
presenting
my
research
to
computer
scientists,
information
scientists
and
data
scientists.
B
C
B
B
So
this
is
a
project
that
we
worked
on
for
about
a
year
and
a
half
one
of
the
papers
is
in
final
review
of
the
journal,
fingers
crossed
and
the
other
one
we're
hoping
to
have
submitted
by
the
end
of
the
semester,
and
this
paper
is
called
constructing,
alternative
facts,
populist
expertise
in
the
Q
Anon
conspiracy.
So
I
do
work
on
the
far
right
and
Fringe
groups
and
disinformation
more
broadly
I've
been
studying
social
media
and
social
Technologies
in
the
academy
for
almost
20
years.
B
Both
of
these
stories
are
not
true
and
the
moderator
was
saying
you
know-
please
don't
post
this
type
of
thing
on
my
on
my
group
on
our
group,
but
this
group
was
a
q,
Anon
Hub
with
almost
14
000
members
and
will
and
I
found
this
very
puzzling,
because
the
page
administrators
were
advocating
the
kinds
of
practices
that
are
often
promoted
as
a
solution
to
disinformation.
Media
literacy
right
the
idea
that,
if
you're
thinking
critically
and
you're
rejecting
clickbait,
then
you
supposedly
would
reject
counterfactual
conspiracy
theories
like
Q
Anon.
B
So
today,
I
want
to
present
what
we
found
when
we
investigated
this
conundrum.
The
results
of
a
pair
of
studies
that
we
conducted
in
2019,
based
on
about
nine
months
of
non-participant
observation
in
Q,
Anon
groups
on
Facebook
and
then
a
set
of
image,
Boards
called
4chan,
a-chan
and
eight.
And
if
you're
not
familiar
with
those
I'll,
explain
what
those
are
and.
C
B
So
the
structure
of
this
talk
first
I'll,
give
you
a
brief
sense
of
what
Q
Anon
is
and
what
makes
it
different
from
some
other
online
conspiracies.
Second
I'm
going
to
sort
of
tip
my
hat
to
a
broader
social
science
literature
around
conspiracy
theories.
Third
I
want
to
walk
you
through
two
of
Q
anon's
interpretive
practices.
B
And
then
I
want
to
talk
about
this
concept
of
populist
expertise,
which
my
colleague
and
I
have
come
up
with
to
refer
to
these
types
of
practices
and
finally,
I'm
going
to
tie
this
back
to
larger
discussions
and
disinformation
studies,
which
is
sort
of
a
subfield
where
I
would
situate
myself
right
now.
So,
let's
start
with
the
basics
of
Q
Anon,
so
Q
Anon
is
what's
called
a
big
tent
conspiracy
theory.
It's
very
large.
It
includes
a
lot
of
other
conspiracy
theories
and
it
morphs
based
on
current
events,
but
in
its
most
basic
form.
B
Q
Anon
holds
that
former
president
Trump
is
battling
a
group
of
deep
State
Democrats
and
entrenched
insiders
who
are
satanic,
pedophiles
and
Hillary
Clinton
and
Barack
Obama
among
them,
but
also
Hollywood
Elites,
like
Tom
Hanks
and
Scions
of
Industry,
like
Mark
Zuckerberg,
and
the
theory
goes
one
of
these
days.
There's
going
to
be
a
sort
of
Day
of
Reckoning,
where
this
group
of
people
gets
their
comeuppance.
It
turns
out
that
Trump
has
been
sort
of
planning
this
all
along.
B
He
will
be
reinstated
as
president
and
there
will
be
a
Great
Awakening
that
takes
place,
and
this
is
very
tied
to
sort
of
Evangelical
Christian
Notions
of
the
the
apocalypse
or
you
know
the
revelation
and
good
and
evil,
and
there's
a
lot
of
this
sort
of
almost
action
movie,
sci-fi
kind
of
imagery
in
these
groups
around
what's
going
to
happen
during
the
Great
Awakening.
There's
going
to
be
this
like
Vanquish
vanquishing
of
people.
B
So
what
does
this
actually
look
like?
So
the
idea
that
a
group
of
wealthy
Elites
controls
the
world
is
about
as
basic
a
conspiracy
theory
as
you
can
get,
but
there's
a
few
things
that
make
Q
Anon
unique.
Unlike
other
conspiracy
theories,
it's
based
on
basically
Message
Board
posts,
which
they
call
drops
from
this
Anonymous
figure
called
q
and
Q
claims
to
be
a
trump
Administration
Insider.
So
somebody
with
like
access
to
government
knowledge,
spy
knowledge.
B
You
know
foreign
policy
knowledge
lots
of
like
seek
government
secrets
and
this
person
Q
posted
originally
on
the
image
boards
known
as
4chan
q
m
was
kicked
off
4chan.
They
moved
to
a
basically
an
image
board,
clone
called
Han.
That
closed
and
then
they
moved
to
an
image
board
called
acun
and
then
Q
stopped
posting
more
or
less
right
around
the
2020
election
and
hasn't
posted
since
now,
4chan
the
image
board
is
pretty
notorious,
so
you
might
have
heard
of
it.
B
It
was
known
in
the
mid-auts
of
being
the
origin
of
a
lot
of
very
popular
in
early
internet
memes,
so
things
like
Wildcats
or
Rick
Rolling.
If
you've
heard
of
those
there's
a
great
book
by
a
a
woman
named
Whitney,
Phillips
called
this
is
why
we
can't
have
nice
things
where
she
Chronicles.
The
early
practices
of
4chan
4chan
was
also
very
influential
during
the
2016
election.
The
4chan
poll
board
was
sort
of
the
birth
of
I
would
call
it
the
sort
of
online
alt-right
and
they
did
a
lot
of
sort
of
meming.
B
They
claimed
that
they
had
memed
president
Trump
into
the
White
House,
so
cue
themselves
have
posted
thousands
of
times.
These
are
three
examples
of
Q's
posts.
They
are
obscure
sequences
of
words
and
numbers,
and
people
who
subscribe
to
this
conspiracy
theory
think
of
these
posts,
as
infallible
like
they're,
totally
correct,
and
they
believe
that
they
predict
future
events
and
that
they
explain
past
events.
B
These
drops
are
also
very
cryptic.
They
often
contain
chains
of
leading
questions.
They
ask
the
reader
to
do
the
research
or
follow
this
person
or
that
person
which
really
just
means
like
go,
look
them
up
on
Google.
Sometimes
they
ask
people
to
do
very
specific
things,
like
reverse
image,
search
and
q's.
B
Explanation
for
why
these
are
such
sort
of
obscure
and
difficult
to
understand
posts
is
that
if
they
were
more
clear
they
would
people
would
know
who
they
are
and
they
would
be
in
danger,
so
they're
sort
of
by
Design
very
difficult
to
understand
so
in
Q,
Anon,
lore
decoding
these
drops
and
understanding
them
supposedly
AIDS
Trump
in
his
fight
against
the
corrupt
Elites.
So
Q
Anon
not
only
gives
the
sympathetic
reader
inside
information
about
current
events,
which
is
a
core
appeal
of
many
conspiracy
theories.
B
B
So,
as
you
might
imagine,
kovid
has
been
huge
for
Q,
Anon
and
they've
come
up
with
all
kinds
of
conspiracy
theories
that
you
know:
focus
on
vaccines
and
5G
and
Bill
Gates
role
in
it
and
all
these
other
sort
of
obscure
things.
So
there's
lots
of
disciplines
that
study
conspiracy
theories,
social
psychologists
are
very
interested
in
finding
a
personality,
type
or
attributes
that
are
common
to
conspiracy.
Believers.
B
So
is
there
something
about
a
particular
kind
of
person
that
makes
them
more
likely
to
believe
in
a
conspiracy
theory,
so
sometimes
there's
a
sense
that
it's
people
who
don't
feel
like
they're
effective
in
their
political
lives.
They
don't
feel
like
they
have
other
ways
to
make
changes
or
that
they're
more
open
to
experience
than
other
people,
I'm
more
persuaded
by
scholars
in
anthropology
cultural
studies
and
sociology
who
instead
look
at
conspiracy
theories
as
a
social
phenomenon
and
this
research,
some
of
which
is
really
really
interesting.
B
Like
ethnographies
of
people
who
hold
Fringe
beliefs
finds
that
conspiracy
Believers
strongly
believe
themselves
to
be
critical,
free
thinkers
and
that
they're
Loosely
arranged
in
intellect
linked
networks
that
they
are
communities
and
as
communities
as
they
become
more
and
more
involved
in
the
community.
They
sort
of
learn
how
to
interpret
things,
and
they
share
this
common
understanding
that
they
learn
over
time
and
interacting
with
other
members
of
the
community
yeah.
That's
this
one
and
although
people
do
come
to
believe
conspiracy
theories,
oh
sorry,
I
did
not
mean
to
do
that.
B
C
B
With
conspiracy
theorists,
they
are
very
skeptical
of
traditional
knowledge,
making
institutions
so
science,
the
academy
journalism
government.
Instead,
they
are
generally
open
to
various
other
types
of
knowledge
claims.
So
there's
a
big
emphasis
on,
for
example,
personal
experience
or
on
your
feeling
about
something
or
faith
or
religious
experience,
mysticism
the
occult
the
Bible
Etc
and
the
ability
to
evaluate
and
read.
B
These
knowledge
claims
to
sort
of
understand
these
as
knowledge
and
to
accept
them
as
knowledge
is
a
Hallmark
of
these
communities,
and
so
this
is
a
great
book
by
Mark,
Fenster
conspiracy
theories,
secrecy
and
Power
in
American
culture,
where
he
says
conspiracy
theory
demands
continual
interpretation.
There
is
always
something
more
to
know
about
an
alleged
conspiracy.
Conspiracy
theory
works
as
a
form
of
hyperactive,
semiosis
or
semiotics
like
reading
signs,
in
which
history
and
politics
serve
as
reservoirs
of
signs
that
demand
over
interpretation
and
that
signify
for
The
Interpreter,
far
more
than
their
conventional
meaning.
B
So
he
wrote
this
in
2008,
but
this
describes
Q
Anon
very
well,
because
they
read
current
events
and
politics
like
newspaper
stories,
Fox,
News
and
CNN.
They
sort
of
see
these
as
symbols
and
signs
that
there's
a
deeper
meaning
to
that
they
can
interpret
and
read
into
this
practice
of
interpreting.
A
text
is
also
a
key
element
of
Henry
Jenkins
concept
of
participatory
culture
and
Henry.
B
What's
going
on
or
learn
about
spoilers
to
people
who
are
fans
of
True
Crime
who
want
to
kind
of
figure
out
what
happened
in
a
cold
case.
This
type
of
close
engagement
and
investigation
is
still
a
Hallmark
of
online
fan
groups
and
his
definition
of
participatory
culture,
I
think,
is
still
very
relevant
today.
He
said
it's
a
culture
that
has
low
barriers
to
expression
and
Civic
engagement.
In
other
words,
it's
easy
to
get
involved.
B
So
more
recently-
and
this
is
getting
a
little
bit
into
the
weeds
of
like
disciplinary
arguments
within
communication-
but
there's
a
media
theorist
named
Thorson
Quant
who's
come
up
with
a
concept
of
dark
participation
which
is
basically
like
well
what
if
it's
participation
and
people
are
participating
but
they're
doing
something
that
is
like
normatively,
bad,
like
they're,
trolling
or
harassing
people
or
their
conspiracy
theorists
or
their
members
of
the
alt-right
or
the
far
right?
And
so
he
sort
of
says.
Well,
participation
is
good.
B
We
think
that
they're
all
just
forms
of
participation
and
then
it
shouldn't
be
up
to
the
scholar
to
decide
what's
good
and
what's
bad
I
think
we
have
to
really
grapple
with
the
fact
that
when
we
think
about
increasing
participation
and
increasing
involvement,
we've
generally
thought
of
that
as
a
good
thing
like,
but
today,
there's
forms
of
political
participation
that
want
to
like
curtail
voting
rights
or
overturn
Democratic
decisions
or
promote
censorship,
and
those
are
also
forms
of
participation,
so
sort
of.
How
do
we
grapple
with
this?
B
Specifically,
we
build
upon
the
findings
of
media
sociologist
Francesca
tripodi,
who
is
one
of
my
colleagues
here
at
ctap
who,
in
her
2018
report
for
data
and
Society,
argued
that
conservative
Americans
use
techniques
learned
in
Bible
study
to
read
media
texts.
This
practice
she
calls
scriptural
inference
and
it
involves
scrutinizing
primary
sources
line
by
line
to
unpack
their
meaning,
and
she
frames
this
as
a
form
of
media
literacy.
B
So
if
you've
ever,
you
know,
studied
the
Bible
or
studied
some
other
book
or
done
taken
an
English
class,
you
know
you
could
kind
of
learn
to
go
line
by
line
through
a
text
and
really
like
look
at
the
words
like
try
to
unpack
the
hidden
meanings.
She
saw
people
doing
this,
not
just
with
religious
texts,
but
also
with
things
like
a
tax
bill
or
a
speech
by
President
Trump
and
then
comparing
it
to
the
way
it
was
covered
by
the
news
and
on
the
right
here.
B
I
have
a
screenshot
from
that
someone
posted
very
recently
January
6th
on
one
of
my
telegram
groups
where
they're
do
this
is
a
book.
That's
you
know
it's
one
of
those
books
that
gives
you
like
a
Bible
verse
to
read
and
then
an
interpretation
of
the
Bible,
verse
and
she's
doing
her
Bible
study
but
she's,
combining
it
with
something
called
Gematria,
which
is
a
Jewish,
it's
kind
of
like
a
mystical,
ballistic
form
of
numerology.
Like
you
put
a
message
into
this
Gematria
reader,
there
are
these
websites
and
it
spits
out
a
number.
B
So
it's
like
an
alphanumeric
translator
and
Q
anons
currently
believe
that
there,
if
you
read
Gematria,
you
can
sort
of
uncover
hidden
meanings.
So
here
you
can
see
that
she's
literally
combining
Bible
study
with
this
Gematria
technique
that
she's
learned
as
part
of
somebody
in
a
q,
Anon
group
and
Q
Anon
participants
engage
in
this
type
of
close
reading
within
online
communities,
combining
scriptural
inference
with
elements
of
collective
interpretation
that
we
see
in
participatory
culture,
and
so
we're
really
interested
in
how
this
interpretive
practice
that
is
generally
associated
with
conservatives.
B
How
does
that
change
when
it's
done
as
a
group
when
it's
done
on
the
internet?
Well,
what
it
does
is.
It
gives
rise
to
this
very
powerful
community
of
believers,
who
are
very
committed
to
a
conspiracy,
despite
its
frequently
Incorrect
and
counterfactual
claims,
so
I'm
going
to
turn
back
to
Q
Anon
and
run
through
two
of
their
interpretive
practices
to
analyze
this
in
more
detail.
B
So
first
I
want
to
talk
about
proofs.
So
a
proof
is
a
document
YouTube
video
or
most
commonly
what
Joan,
Donovan
and
PM
craft
call
an
Evidence
collage
and
that's
an
Evidence
collage
on
the
right.
It's
this
kind
of
thing
that
looks
like
it
was
made
in
Microsoft
Paint.
You
see
these
all
over
the
Internet
that
prove
certain
things.
B
But
in
this
case
these
proofs
prove
that
Q's
predictions
are
accurate,
meaning
that
they're
they're
they
are
who
they
say.
They
are
and
Q
says
in
their
drops.
Future
proves
passed,
so
you
know
you'll
find
out.
This
thing
will
happen.
You'll
see
that
I
was
right.
All
along,
so
I
want
to
talk
through
how
a
drop
like
the
one
on
the
left,
this
missile
missile
fox
3
Splash
thing.
This
is
like
a
text
that
Q
posted
on
Han.
B
B
Pictures
that
you
see
in
the
proof
to
like
pornography-
and
you
know
Gore
and
political
things,
it
all
kinds
of
stuff
and
it's
very
hard
to
understand
who's
replying
to
who
you
have
to
kind
of
learn
how
to
read
a
Chan
like
how
to
use
it.
So
the
entire
thing
is
very
confusing:
there's
also
lots
of
people
who
will
show
up
on
Han
to
troll
the
Q,
anons
and
post
all
kinds
of
unrelated
content.
There's
lots
of
side
conversations,
but
generally
when
Q
would
post
everyone
would
stop
whatever
they
were.
B
They
often
ask
questions:
they
include
unlabeled
images,
they
tell
readers
to
think
critically.
So,
when
Bakers
are
interpreting
these
drops,
they
have
to
Grapple
with
the
entire
Corpus
or
body
of
cues
drops,
which,
as
I
said,
are
in
number
in
the
thousands
there's
thousands
of
these
messages
and
somebody
who's.
B
So
this
is
a
screenshot
from
an
ebook,
that's
sort
of
like
Q
Anon
101.
There's
a
lot
of
these
floating
around.
We
have
about
15
of
them
that
these,
like
thousand
page
e-books,
that
are
sort
of
like
what
is
Q
Anon
and
how
to
get
involved
and
Bakers
learn
these
practices
of
q-drop
interpretation
from
each
other.
Now
this
is
by
no
means
the
only
way
that
people
interpret
Hughes
posts.
In
fact,
if
you
read
a
bunch
of
these
how-to,
they
mostly
contradict-
and
this
doesn't
really
make
a
lot
of
sense.
B
If
you,
if
you
sit
and
read
it
basically
they're
saying
you
start
from
the
bottom
and
go
but
as
you'll
see,
that's
not
always
how
people
do
it
so
on
hn
people
throughout
all
kinds
of
explanations,
about
what
a
particular
drop
might
mean.
So,
for
example,
when
they
were
decoding
drop
432,
which
is
this
missile
missile
fox
3
thing.
B
They
suggested
several
explanations
for
the
unusual
spelling
of
missile.
In
the
second
line.
Could
the
missing
ion
missile
mean
mislee,
the
reporter
or
hostage
rescued
by
Bill
Clinton
from
North
Korea?
Maybe
a
missile
is
a
missile
that's
been
taken
over
in
Flight
by
an
unintended
party,
and
most
of
these
get
ignored
or
people
are
like
that
doesn't
sound,
very
plausible,
and
because
this
early
process
involves
a
lot
of
brainstorming
and
wild
guesses.
Suggestions
that
seem
particularly
unlikely
are
often
met
very
skeptically,
so
one
and
on
ranted
the
biggest
problem
is
people
use.
B
Every
word
q
says
to
try
to
completely
invent
fantastic
assumptions:
yeah
okay.
So
how
do
we
get
from
these
kind
of
interpretation
to
the
closure?
And
this
is
a
term
from
Science
and
Technology
studies-
interpretive
closure?
That
basically
means
like
people
agree
upon
the
meaning
of
something
in
some
cases,
Q
verifies
an
explanation.
So,
for
example,
somebody
posted
this
Splash
fox
3,
which
is
a
cut
and
paste
from
like
a
Navy
glossary
website
and
Q
actually
said.
Yes,
that's
correct,
so
that
is
automatically
true.
B
Secondly,
there's
this
thing
called
notables,
which
is
at
the
end
of
every
thread,
because
it's
so
chaotic
a
volunteer
moderator
will
basically
close
the
thread,
pull
out
anything
they
think
was
important
and
make
a
list
of
notables
and
then
they'll.
Ask
other
people
like
are
you
know,
is
this?
Did
I
miss
anything?
And
so,
if
something
gets
cataloged
in
notables,
it's
more
likely
to
be
picked
up
later,
as
something
that's
important,
but
that's
just
done
by
some
random
volunteer.
B
It's
like
not
like
that
person
has
any
more
Authority
than
anything
anybody
else
and
on
the,
and
the
third
way
is
that
someone
takes
the
initiative
to
create
an
Evidence,
collage,
YouTube,
video
or
other
form
of
evidence.
So
this
is
another
evidence
collage
on
the
left.
That
includes
the
same
drop,
the
missile
missile
fox
3
Splash,
but
it's
a
completely
different
interpretation.
So
you
see
a
lot
of
these
sort
of
competing
interpretations.
B
B
Most
of
the
time
they
cited
right-leaning
sources
like
Breitbart
and
the
Gateway
pundit,
but
we
also
saw
lots
of
examples
of
mainstream
media
sources
like
ABC
News,
Bloomberg
CNBC.
We
also
saw
links
to
Wikipedia
tweets,
Google
Maps,
Google
search
results
Etc.
Now
we
often
think
of
conspiracy
theorists
as
these
kind
of
gullible
people
who
will
accept
anything.
But
our
findings
really
complicate
this
assessment.
Q
anons
demonstrated
very
wide-ranging
knowledge
about
current
and
past
events.
B
They
questioned
the
legitimacy
of
sources
or
the
conclusions
that
other
participants
came
to
and,
above
all,
they
admonished
others
to
do
the
research
or
think
critically
messages
that
frequently
appeal
appear
in
appeals
to
media
literacy.
So
this
is
a
meme
that
was
shared
in
a
Q
and
on
Facebook
group.
B
If
you're
not
going
to
do
the
research
then
shut
the
f
up
and
then
on
the
right,
we're
asked
we're
leading
you
to
water,
not
asking
you
to
drink
the
Kool-Aid,
always
do
your
own
research
and,
although
their
research
often
lent
them
to
outlandish
conclusions,
they
have
this
set
of
practices
that
make
them
seem
systematic
and
authoritative.
We're
not
saying
this
is
a
valid.
B
These
are
equally
valid
to
you,
know
academic
research
or
anything
like
that,
but
we
want
to
make
sure
that
people
understand
that
there
is
an
internal
logic
to
Q
Anon
and
it
does
run
in
many
ways
in
parallel
to
how
we
make
knowledge
in
the
academy
or
think
tanks.
Things
like
that,
so
I
was
going
to
go
into
this
thing
called
The
Q
clock,
but
it's
kind
of
hard
to
explain,
and
it's
mostly
just
another
example
of
what
I
already
showed
you.
B
But
this
is
a
kind
of
quasi-scientific
instrument
that
Q
anons
have
come
up
to
basically
to
like
read:
Trump's
tweets
so
I'm
going
to
skip
this
because
it's
I
don't
think
it
says
interesting.
So,
ultimately,
we
argue
that
the
forms
of
knowledge
and
interpretation
that
are
furthered
by
Q
Anon
adherence
constitute
what
we
call
populist
expertise.
So
the
rejection
of
Legacy
Media
accounts,
scientific
consensus
or
Elite
knowledge
in
favor
of
a
body
of
homegrown
information
generated
by
those
who
may
feel
disenfranchised
from
mainstream
political
participation.
B
So
this
combines
populist
rejection
of
expertise,
because
if
you
think
about
populism,
it's
generally
like
we
reject
Elites,
we
reject
Authority
with
the
parallel
creation
of
archives
and
instruments
and
practices
that
create
knowledge
and
information
that
support
the
logical
consistency
of
otherwise
incorrect
arguments.
So
it's
not
that
anons
oppose
expertise
completely,
but
they
definitely
reject
the
normative
version
of
expertise
that
you
know
we
see
in
the
academy
and
civil
society
and
the
quote:
unquote
deep
State.
They
see
this
as
Progressive.
B
They
see
it
as
globalist,
they
don't
see
it
as
ideological
neutral
and
so,
rather
than
rejecting
expertise,
they
try
to
claim
expertise
in
their
own
particular
way.
So
what
does
this
mean
for
those
of
us
who
study
disinformation?
So,
first
of
all,
we
need
to
very
critically
think
through
positioning
media
literacy
as
a
potential
solution.
B
Conservative
forms
of
media
literacy
draw
on
fundamentally
different
epistemological
assumptions
than
Elites
form
of
expertise,
including
this
deep,
close
reading
of
primary
texts
and
these
validations
of
other
forms
of
understanding
and
knowledge
and
on
the
right
here,
I
have
a
gematra
reading
from
telegram
it's
complex
decoding
of
textual
evidence.
It's
not
a
form
of
literacy
that
any
of
us
in
this
room
would
recognize
it's
deeply
rooted
in
religious
practices,
but
it
is
accepted
as
valid
in
these
groups,
along
with
things
like
personal
experience,
faith
and
feeling.
B
Second
doing
your
own
research
is
consistently
Central
to
a
huge
variety
of
Fringe
and
Far
Right
groups,
including
Q
Anon,
flat
earthers
anti-vaxxers
white
supremacists.
These
groups
already
think
of
themselves
as
highly
literate,
critical
thinkers,
but
often
when
they
do
this
research
they're
doing
it
within
communities
that
reject
scientific
or
journalistic
expertise
in
favor
of
populist
expertise.
So
if
you're
just
trying
to
fact
check
people
and
you're
like
well,
this
is
wrong
because
I
have
a
study
that
says
so.
That's
not
going
to
work
because
they've
already
rejected
that
form
of
expertise.
B
A
Thank
you
so
much
Alice.
This
was
fantastic.
I
couldn't
even
see
how
the
time
moved
past.
You
know
it
was
even
the
the
almost
like
code
breaking
so
it
left
me
wondering
what
type
of
courses
or
curriculum
would
be
need
to
train
folks
to
be
able
to
understand
this,
and
you
know
maybe
even
combat
some
of
the
influence
or
the
type
of
disinformation
campaigns.
B
That's
a
great
question
and
that's
sort
of
the
one
I
get
a
lot
it's
like.
Well,
what
do
we
do
if
people
have
these
really
radical
forms
of
knowledge
that
are
really
different
like
what
do
we
do
about
them
and
I'm,
not
really
sure
to
tell
you
the
truth,
you
know,
there's
there's
various
suggestions
that
you
can
lead
people
into
understanding
that
their
point
of
view
is
wrong.
You
can
try
to
adopt
similar.
B
You
know
faith-based
understanding
and
discussing
with
them,
but
it's
it
is
really
hard
because
you're
coming
from
such
a
different
place
like
if
you're,
an
academic
researcher
and
you're
like
well
I,
want
to
combat
these
conspiracy
theorists
or
these
Q
Anon
people
there's
going
to
be
a
level
of
distrust
there.
That
I
think
is
going
to
be
hard
to
combat
I.
B
Don't
think
that
works
I
think
that
just
comes
off
as
like
you
know
better
than
they
do
you're
smarter
than
them
again.
You're
you're
you're
bumping
into
this.
Like
sense
of
populism,
where
you
know
many
of
the
people
in
this
group
are
very
suspicious
of
traditional
forms
of
authority.
So
it's
a
really
good
question.
I
mean
that's
kind
of
our.
Why
we
wanted
to
do
these
kinds
of
projects
was
to
come
up
with
more
solutions,
but
right
now
we're
still
kind
of
like
okay.
Well
now
we
figured
out
how
it
works.
A
A
B
A
D
Thank
you.
Thank
you.
Great
presentation,
I
really
enjoyed
it.
I
just
wanted
to
tell
you
that
it
was
really
inspiring
I'm
thinking
about
how
can
I
apply
some
mathematical
models
in
the
spread
of
conspiracy,
theory
or
misinformation
about
this
group
and
the
misinformation
about
kieranan.
It
was
so
inspiring.
Thank
you
so
much
well.
Thank
you
very
much.
E
B
That's
a
great
sorry,
I
didn't
mean
to
interrupt
that's
a
great
question.
You
know
I
started
out
in
2016
studying
alt-right
groups,
which
were
mostly
like
young
men
posting
on
4chan,
and
this
is
a
very
different
group
of
people.
I've
been
listening
to.
They
have
kind
of
like
Clubhouse
style
Chats
on
telegram
where
there
are
these
audio
chat
rooms,
and
there
are
a
lot
of
people
in
middle
age.
B
A
lot
of
people
who
strongly
identify
as
Christian
I,
think
a
lot
of
people
from
outside
urban
areas,
and
they
would
skew
probably
older,
I,
think
than
a
lot
of
Internet
communities
they're,
mostly,
but
not
all
white,
so
you're
you're,
talking
I,
think
about
people
who
would
fall
fairly
squarely
into
traditional
sort
of
Republican
strongholds
in
terms
of
like
people
who
are
from
traditionally
conservative
areas
of
the
United
States.
Although
it's
by
no
means
the
just
the
United
States
Q
Anon
is
an
international
movement.
B
I,
don't
think,
even
though
you
know
there's
been
some
really
interesting
work
done
on,
for
example,
the
people
who
were
at
the
Capitol
coup
a
year
ago
in
January
and
how
those
people
were
not
economically
struggling.
They
were
middle
class,
they
were
business
owners.
In
some
cases
they
were
very
affluent
I.
Don't
I
do
get
the
sense
that
some
of
these
people
are
really
struggling.
There's
a
lot
of
discussions
of
medical
problems,
there's
a
lot
of
discussions
of
being
on
disability
and
in
terms
of
how
they
find
the
time.
B
You
know
this
is
their
hobby.
This
is
what
they
do
when
they
get
home
from
work,
they
don't
watch
Netflix
they
get
on
their
computer
and
they
talk
to
other
people
about
Q
Anon.
It's
the
same
thing
that
people
do
when
they,
you
know,
write,
Harry,
Potter,
fan,
fiction
or
post.
You
know,
post
on
Twitter
clay
sturkey
about
a
decade
ago,
called
this
cognitive
Surplus.
The
idea
that
a
lot
of
people
have
these
jobs
that
aren't
super
engaging,
and
so
they
use
their
mental
energy.
B
Engaging
in
sort
of
these
types
of
participatory
activities
on
the
internet
and
Shirkey
was
talking
about
much
more
benign
stuff
like
creating
Wildcats
and
posting
on
message
boards,
but
it's
definitely
the
same
type
of
of
impetus
and
the
same
kind
of
you
know.
This
is
how
they're,
using
that
cognitive,
Surplus.
C
I
I
have
a
question.
Thank
you.
So
much
for
the
article
I
really
enjoyed
it,
because
a
few
information
is
one
of
the
imperative
means
of
like
communicating.
So
my
question
is:
do
you
have
any
idea
of
what
their
motive
was
behind
that
like
spreading
the
conspiracy
theory?
Do
you
know
like
if
there
was
like
emotion
behind
that?
Maybe
political
means,
because
why
I
realized
that
it
was
viral
since
20
up
until
2021
the
Q
Anon,
but
as
of
2021,
it
stopped,
which
is
like
there's
no
like
a
lecture
coming
up
soon.
B
That's
a
that's,
not
that's
a
really
good
question.
So
what
is
the
motive
behind
people
who
participate
so
I
think
some
of
these
people
are
True
Believers,
like
they
honestly
believe
that
there's
going
to
be
this
like
apocalyptic
event,
they
want
to
be
on
the
right
side
of
that
and
they
want
to
sort
of
Aid
the
people
they
think
are
on
the
right
side
of
history
and
so
by
decoding
these
drops
and
spending
time
in
these
communities.
That's
a
form
of
political
participation
to
them
just
like
for
other
communities.
B
It
might
be
going
to
a
March
or
signing
a
petition
or
something
like
that.
I
think
also,
there's
a
sense,
there's
a
strong
sense
of
fear
and
urgency.
You
know
I
didn't
get
into
some
of
the
more
lurid
parts
of
this
conspiracy
theory,
but
there's
a
lot
of
very
frightening
stuff
out
there
about
what
this
these
evil
groups
are
doing.
B
You
know
some
of
you
may
have
heard
of
some
related
conspiracy
theories
like
around
child
trafficking
or
Wayfarer
or
save
the
children,
and
so
there's
this
whole
thing
about
how
these
this
evil
group
of
evil
people
are
doing
horrible
things
to
children
and
that
I
think
really
does
motivate
a
lot
of
people
that
they
want
to
save
these
children
that
they
think
are
being
targeted.
There's
a
sense
that
they're
there.
B
This
is
like
a
group
of
people
who
are
like
purely
evil,
so
there's
also
I
think
a
sense
of
strong
urgency
and
morality
that
they
they
want
to
help
people
by
telling
people
about
this.
About
this
conspiracy
theory
and
there's
also
lots
of
discussions
in
these
groups
about
people
who've
been
cut
off
from
their
family.
They
can't
see
their
grandchildren
there's
a
subreddit
called
Q
Anon.
B
What's
it
called
I
think
it's
called
a
q,
Anon
Anonymous,
or
something
like
that
where
people
talk
about
how
they've
lost
family
members
to
Q
Anon
like
family
members
have
become
so
involved
in
Q
Anon
that
they
no
longer
can
talk
about
anything
else
or
they
no
longer
really
have
contact
with
their
family.
So
for
some
people
this
really
does
take
over
and
become
kind
of
an
all-consuming
obsession.
F
Thank
you,
Alice.
That
was
really
great
and
you
know,
I
have
learned
a
lot.
I
have
to
say
that
this
pattern
is
actually
existing
in
our
communities
too.
We
see
that
a
lot,
but
not
to
that
extent
not
to
the
extent
of
making
like
a
clock.
So
that's
like
a
really
insightful.
Thank
you.
So
much
yeah
I
just
wanted
to
share
that.
We
had
the
same
thing
well,.
A
Well,
thanks
for
that
comment
and
I
noticed
that
we
are
the
top
of
the
hour
so
again.
Thank
you
so
much
Alice
for
this
wonderful
talk
and
thank
you,
everyone
in
the
participants
for
joining
us
today
morning
and
next
month
we
will
have
another
exciting
talk,
so
looking
forward
to
see
you
already,
thank
you.
Everyone
have
a
very
nice
day.