i think the that sort of high business mind says, i'm going to do the thing that nobody's doingg and there's a lot of value in that. But at the same time, what happens is these big platforms become so monolithic that theyare, they are too big. You can threaten them with regulation, but i don't know the regulations the answer. It's an incredibly difficult problem, and there there are no good solutions. Theplat forns themselves sayd you can't no story or your content herer. We don't want the ers.
Michael Shermer speaks with Mike Rothschild, a journalist specializing in conspiracy theories, about QAnon and its followers.
On October 5th, 2017, President Trump made a cryptic remark in the State Dining Room at a gathering of military officials. He said it felt like “the calm before the storm” — then refused to elaborate as puzzled journalists asked him to explain. But on the infamous message boards of 4chan, a mysterious poster going by “Q Clearance Patriot,” who claimed to be in “military intelligence,” began the elaboration on their own. In the days that followed, Q’s wild yarn explaining Trump’s remarks began to rival the sinister intricacies of a Tom Clancy novel, while satisfying the deepest desires of MAGA-America. But did any of what Q predicted come to pass? No. Did that stop people from clinging to every word they were reading, expanding its mythology, and promoting it wider and wider? No. Why not?