• pjwestin@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Not really. QAnon was only on 4Chan for the first year, then it migrated to 8Chan. But the tl;dr is it was probably started as a joke, taken over by bad-faith trolls, and has been under the control of Ron Watkins and his creepy son for a significant amount of time. QAnon Anonymous (now named QAA) is a great Podcast that’s been tracking the Q movement and other right-wing extremists for years.

    • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I hope so. Textual analysis suggests a “2 Q” theory where the earliest posts were mostly one author on 4chan (interestingly not all, several early drops are believed to be from different users) and then another person (who I believe wholeheartedly is 8chan administration Ron Watkins) started posting as Q and moved to 8chan. I’m interested in knowing who the earliest Q was and what the content of the very first Q drops was, given that there are believed to be several that didn’t get archived. Several people have claimed to be 4chan Q but none of their stories are particularly convincing. My guess is that it was a bunch of random trolls at first and then one of them just went with it when they started getting a following.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Turns out it was Bernie Sanders all along. Finally, the deep state megajew lizard retreats to his orbiting space station with the breakaway civilization and starts charging up the 5G covid laser while petting his chemically gay frog. Blissful oblivion is only moments away for the hairless ape race, unless the tall plieadian archangel Mick intervenes.

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      A person in my discord (with no source, so keep that in mind) sent the attached. He was theorizing that Q-anon was a Mossad operation based on this chart saying Israel has the highest quantity of posts after 2014. He’s fairly left leaning, and not one of the crazies on 4 chan yelling “the joos!” Having said that I have no idea if this chart is even legit.

      • Valmond@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Lots of swedes are radicalised, just imagine a country of under ten millions being seventh place.

      • starsailover@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        I have also seen this image but the question is what did they try to accomplish? If anything cesspools like 4chan have radicalized guys to the far right and increase antisemitism.

        • el_muerte@lemm.ee
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          2 days ago

          There’s this weird phenomenon where Zionism and antisemitism have a ton of overlap on the far right. White Christian nationalism has end times beliefs that rely on Israel existing as a nation in full control of the entire original “Holy Land,” but such beliefs don’t necessarily require the Jewish people to be thriving or treated as equals.

          I guess it’s possible that Israeli intelligence and leadership behind such an operation, if there is any legitimacy to the idea this was a Mossad operation, could’ve decided that the odd hate crime carried out against Jews by mentally ill lone wolves stochastic terrorists would not only be a comparatively small price to pay in the furtherance of their goals, but even serve to galvanise the broader populace in support of Israel. And that outcome is actually what we’re seeing in reality - we see that a large number of moderates and even some progressives have hopped on board the “any criticism of Israel is antisemitism” train.

          I’m not saying I believe this theory, but it definitely seems plausible.

    • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      No. Qanon stuff mostly happened on 8chan, and even then there’s no secret “historical” data to access. It was one or multiple obsessed and/or manipulative people spreading insane ideas anonymously, and idiots falling for it. There’s no secret inside some system out there, it’s essentially just organic stupidity. Some believe the guy who owned 8chan was “Q”, it’s not an unreasonable idea, but it changes nothing.