Social Media and the Nine 11 Truth Movement

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i think social media allowed this to fester for years. Even when it became clear that cuanon was not just some cranks on a message board, this was a violent prophecy cult that was committing crimes, the social media companies didn't do anything. I don't want they need to be regulated anyway. Cause they're going to hate you anyway. Never mind that it's not seen in censorship and against the first amendment. We've always been conspiratorial. That's how we've evolved. But what social media has done is make them more accessible. It takes virtually no work to be a conspiracy theorist. And wo was worse before january sixth. Tha. Lot of that

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?