Toll of QAnon on families of followers
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The 1969 moon landing? Fake. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy? Cuba really did it. Thomas Jefferson’s bitterly contested election in 1800? Choreographed by hidden hands.
Political conspiracy theories have long found receptive audiences in the U.S., often on the fringes of society. Among the best-known today is QAnon, a set of fabricated claims that a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles controls American politics and media. At its center is an anonymous oracle known as “Q.”
Since 2021, QAnon belief among Americans jumped from 14 percent to 23 percent, while the percentage of skeptics declined from 40 percent to 29 percent, according to a national survey published last fall by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
A new book, “The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family,” delves into the private lives of some believers, chronicling the painful emotional and financial toll this elaborate conspiracy has taken on ordinary people.
Author Jesselyn Cook, a tech reporter who joins Harvard this fall as a 2024-2025 Nieman Fellow, spoke to the Gazette about why so many have fallen under the spell of QAnon and why the Big Tech platforms are only partly to blame. Interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Content retrieved from: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/08/toll-of-qanon-on-families-of-followers/.
