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mark zuckerberg destroying Q

SocietyOctober 8, 2020

How QAnon took over Facebook, and why Zuckerberg just dealt it a massive blow

mark zuckerberg destroying Q

Facebook has announced a ban on the conspiracy network QAnon from its platforms. What is Q, and why does Mark Zuckerberg want him gone? We explain.

What is QAnon?

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theorist group focused around the idea that Satanic cabal is torturing children and attempting to create a new world order. People in the group believe that its mysterious leader, Q, has inside knowledge of the workings of the US government and that President Trump is preparing to bring forth an event called “the storm” which will result in the destruction of this cabal.

Its members are spread throughout the world and across every demographic from social media influencers to political candidates.

In May 2019, the FBI officially identified QAnon as a domestic terrorist threat. Just last week, the US House of Representatives voted to condemn the group and reject its theories. To those in QAnon these actions are only taken as evidence that their cause is righteous.

To most people, condemnation is a reasonable response considering people who subscribe to the conspiracy theory have attempted to assassinate Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, used armoured vehicles and assault rifles to takes stands against the US government, and are spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19.

Why ban QAnon from Facebook and Instagram?

While QAnon began on the imageboard website 4chan, its influence is almost entirely due to its popularity on social media. That’s how it has spread through every level of US society, and how it landed in New Zealand. You’ve probably seen relatives or acquaintances post Facebook statuses about 5G and vaccines, Instagram stories about the “Plandemic” – which claims the coronavirus was manipulated to go viral – or the Covid-19 denial-heavy live streams from members of the Advance NZ party.

Members of QAnon rely on social media to get their message to new audiences. The dangers of child trafficking are an obsession for the group, and by using hashtags like #savethechildren QAnon can terrify parents of young children scrolling through Facebook and make them stop to read more. From there, it appears to be small step to believing in a widespread child kidnapping ring and that the Auckland viaduct is being flooded with cyanide.

The QAnon-rooted “Wayfair conspiracy” which went viral on Instagram and Facebook earlier this year claimed cupboards sold by the Wayfair furniture company that had been given girls’ names in fact contained kidnapped children, who were being sold via the website. It’s not true, but more importantly the conspiracy’s popularity meant a US human trafficking hotline was overwhelmed with complaints about Wayfair, preventing people who really were in danger from getting help.

Here in New Zealand, the cellphone tower arsons earlier this year have been linked to anti-5G conspiracists; 5G conspiracy theories are part of QAnon’s grand narrative, but it’s not known whether the arsonists are in QAnon themselves. In addition, anti-lockdown protests have a strong link to the QAnon-endorsed “plandemic” concept.

NZ Public Party leader Billy TK at an anti-lockdown protest. (Photo: David Farrier).

How strict is the ban?

For Facebook – very. In August, Facebook said it would restrict the promotion of “militarised social movements” and QAnon from its platform. In the first month of this policy, it removed more than 1,500 pages and groups related to QAnon and containing discussions of potential violence. More than 6,500 further groups and pages were removed pertaining to 300 other militarised social movements.

This week, the social network said it will outright ban QAnon. “We believe these efforts need to be strengthened when addressing QAnon,” Facebook said in a statement. “We will remove Facebook pages, groups, and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content.”

The hashtag #savethechildren will also be targeted by Facebook’s team. When someone searches for the phrase, Facebook says it will direct them to credible child safety resources. A quick search today didn’t turn up this message, but QAnon posts bearing the slogan also weren’t visible; any that did remain were largely limited to posts criticising French Netflix show Cuties.

On Instagram, QAnon-related content that has been debunked by the company’s fact-checkers will be filtered out of the “explore” page. If anyone finds the content, it should be clearly labeled with context.

What motivates misinformation? In the third episode of Conversations That Count – Ngā Kōrero Whai Take, we attempt to find out. Subscribe and listen now via iTunes, Spotify or your preferred podcast platform.

Where else does QAnon exist?

Keeping QAnon off Facebook and Instagram should slow the network’s spread, but it won’t kill it. Social media appears to be used more for recruitment to the network than management of it.

The group was born out of the Pizzagate movement, and in 2017 someone called themselves “Q” started posting on 4chan, a website best known for being the birthplace of the “hacktivist” group Anonymous and the art of Rickrolling.

“Q” claimed to be a member of the US government with a high security clearance (“Q clearance”), and that he was leaving clues (“Q drops”) on forums about Trump’s plan to destroy the deep state (“the storm”) so these concerned citizens could help.

He and his followers soon left the depths of 4chan for Reddit, where they were repeatedly shut down for doxxing and inciting violence. “Q drops” began to be made on 4chan successor 8chan (now known as 8kun) and aggregated on websites like QMaps, but the promulgation of the conspiracy theory moved to social media – Facebook and Instagram, mainly – and to very slightly more covert apps like Telegram. QMaps was shut down in September this year, but drops continue to be posted to 8kun.

Can Mark Zuckerberg stop ‘the storm’?

If anyone has the resources, it’s him. But with 2.7 billion active monthly users on Facebook, and the website’s rules largely enforced by users flagging content instead of employees actually searching for it, the ban may not be completely effective. And, again, dismissal by figures of authority only validates QAnon’s belief; the ban won’t change their minds about the conspiracy.

It’s also hard to stop “the storm” when “the storm” is the current president of the US. While Trump is likely not a member of QAnon, some have criticised him for giving it the oxygen of publicity. When asked during a press conference for his opinion of the group he said, “I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate”. He’s also retweeted QAnon followers.

What happens when an unstoppable force (the storm) meets an immovable object (Facebook)? Something horrible, probably.

Keep going!
Students come for lectures and learning, but they also come for the possibility of staying in Aotearoa (Photo: Getty Images)
Students come for lectures and learning, but they also come for the possibility of staying in Aotearoa (Photo: Getty Images)

OPINIONSocietyOctober 7, 2020

We know there is structural racism in our universities. So how should they change?

Students come for lectures and learning, but they also come for the possibility of staying in Aotearoa (Photo: Getty Images)
Students come for lectures and learning, but they also come for the possibility of staying in Aotearoa (Photo: Getty Images)

The current conversation should prompt all universities to closely examine both how and what they teach, writes Massey University provost Giselle Byrnes.

Much has been said lately about structural racism in the New Zealand university system. While these allegations have been specifically raised at the University of Waikato, all eight of the country’s universities have been positioned as guilty by association. What does this mean and how might our universities thoughtfully respond?

The recent Gardiner Parata Report, commissioned to examine claims of racism at the University of Waikato, exonerated the vice chancellor and university management of the specific charges, but concluded that “public institutions in our country are founded in our settlement history, including our universities and education system, which also embody and adhere to western university tradition and culture” and that “these institutions therefore, are structurally, systemically, and casually discriminatory”.

For those of us who work in the New Zealand university system, accusations of systemic, structural and casual racism and the explanation offered for this do not come as a huge surprise. This is not to say that we ought to condone racist thought and behaviour or accept discrimination, or that we should continue to ignore the invisible dominance of structural whiteness, but it is to admit this is our reality – and that we need to do something about it.

While this country’s universities have evolved and adapted over time to suit our local conditions, they are nonetheless part and parcel of the wider colonial enterprise, and they are enduring products of our colonial history. In the British invasion and resettlement of Aotearoa New Zealand in the 19th century, education was given a place in the vanguard of settlement and universities, as public institutions and places of higher learning and scholarship, were quickly prioritised. The first New Zealand university was established in the South Island as early as 1869, while the rest of the colony was still in the grip of a brutal war of sovereignty. Our forebears recognised that power and authority were buttressed by institutionalised and codified knowledge, and universities were a key part of this plan.

Universities also have a longer history that pre-dates British ambitions of imperial expansion into the south Pacific. Tracing their intellectual lineage back to the very first academies in ancient Greece and north Africa, universities have historically been seen as places of importance in carving out a new social order and in defining what mattered. While the very first European universities had strong religious affiliations and focused on theology, law, medicine and the arts, the variety of academic disciplines we recognise today is a much later development, a gift of German 19th century rationalism.

Fast forward to the present and universities are now also public institutions with a mandate to exercise civic leadership; to deliver wider social benefits that go well beyond their narrowly funded activities of teaching and research. According to the 1989 Education Act, universities in New Zealand are expected to be concerned with advanced learning and to develop intellectual independence. They are defined as repositories of knowledge and expertise, places where research and teaching are closely interdependent, and they are expected to meet international standards of research and teaching. And significantly, universities in New Zealand accept a role as “critic and conscience” of society.

If universities, as social and cultural institutions, are products of their day, then this does not mean they are inherently racist and impervious to change. Just as society itself has shifted, universities can and do change over time – and often at a faster pace than they are usually given credit for. Think, for instance, of the ways in which New Zealand’s universities and their staff rapidly pivoted to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, most moving teaching online within a matter of days to ensure continuity of learning and support for students, or the contribution made by our universities’ scientists, epidemiologists and data modellers.

So, if they are capable of change, what should our universities do? I think we must begin to examine both how and what we teach – including the content of our curriculum – alongside re-examining the frames of reference we use to conduct research. Decolonising the curriculum, one of the catch-cries of the Black Lives Matter movement, is seen as being fundamental to effecting any real change. After all, universities create new knowledge, shape the next generation of leaders and signal, by virtue of what appears in the curriculum and which knowledge systems have value. Acknowledging that universities have a history steeped in colonisation, we ought to also be debating just what a decolonised curriculum can and should look like

As Savo Heleta has observed in the context of South Africa, the dismantling of the “pedagogy of big lies” rooted in colonialism demands a complete reconstruction of everything that universities do and stand for, “from institutional cultures to epistemology and curriculum”. Haleta and others have called for ambitious change, for new ways of teaching, for a revision of curriculum content and embracing research methods that “engage in critical epistemic questioning” of knowledge.

What I am advocating for is a sceptical and conscious interrogation of our dominant knowledge systems, and an exposé of the privilege and power that these knowledge systems preserve. My own university has already committed to being a Te Tiriti o Waitangi led university, the first of its kind, which means tackling the sort of challenges I have outlined above. For some this is an audacious (even naive) aspiration, while others express surprise that we are not yet there. Our journey has just started and we have some way to go. If indeed the past is unjust – and in the context of the history of our country, this is irrefutable – then it does not mean this must be the case for the future. Universities have a responsibility to ensure this is so.

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