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QAnon website shuts down after NJ man identified as operator
- controversy 6y agoI really wanted to like QAnon as a conspiracy watcher. Unfortunately I was never able to wrap my mind around its stream of consciousness writing. It seemed like a bunch of right wing blather that used buzzwords to tantalize pro swamp drainers.
- chroem- 6y agoLooking into it, as far as I can tell it's not meant to be taken seriously. Q is an elaborate practical joke created by "The Hacker Known as 4chan" in order to troll the media into losing their minds. So far it seems to be working.
- g8oz 6y agoA possible origin story: QAnon is an autonomous software agent calling GPT-3 with a paranoia + "blood-libel the elites" selector.
- rsynnott 6y agoI’ve always assumed it was a long con, honestly. I expect that when Trump has to persue other opportunities, a bitcoin address will be posted.
- pm90 6y agoPretty sure there will be elaborate arguments about free speech and doxing on this thread so let’s look at the facts: * Qanaon is currently classified as a potential domestic terrorist threat to the country by the FBI. Free speech does not protect you from criminal activity. * this wasn’t simply someone trying to talk freely about what he believed, it seems like this person was making thousands of dollars from this site. He created a fucking pattern account to get “donations”. Wow. The generous way to view this is as a low level scam, but the FBI would probably disagree. I suspect this is why this person shut down the site, he doesn’t want to be the target of scrutiny or media attention.
- woodpanel 6y agooff topic: can you elaborate what a pattern account is? (not a native speaker)
- spiderfarmer 6y agoTypo. He meant Patreon.
- robk 6y agoTypo for Patreon
- Nasrudith 6y agoQAnon followers are a bunch of delusional moron cultists and certainly are very easy to push but "potential domestic terrorist threat by the FBI" is a terrible metric and not a reason to abridge free speech - innocent until proven guilty applies. Occupy Wallstreet and Juggalos also got that designation. "Potential x" is a disingenuous innuendo that implies without meaningful basis you can say every man or woman is a potential rapist or murderer. Aside from watching the suspicious freaks and maybe investigation for some sort of outright donation fraud (just spewing bullshit for money doesn't count or David Icke would be in jail for decades) there isn't much that can be done and respect rights.
- DudeInBasement 6y agoJust ask [name that will get you banned].
- axaxs 6y agoI don't get the reference?
- spiderfarmer 6y agoReading things about Qanon I can't help but think how easy it is to fool large swaths of people by telling them exactly what they want to hear. Especially if they, like all Qanon supporters, believe that "disinformation is necessary", something that enables them to believe in you when you're demonstrably lying. Decennia of sagas, myths, legends, religions and cults have proven that people just want to believe in something that explains the things they themselves can't explain. Things that enable them to form groups that give them a sense of safety. A sense of belonging. A way to feel superior to members of other groups. No matter how bizarre a believe system looks to the general public, the scale of the internet enables you to reach a large group of people anyway. There will always be an audience that actively searches for things to believe in. You don't have to do anything but to sow some seeds, and they'll actively search for the "facts" that will strengthen their believe. The internet also enables you to monetise your scam easily with Patreons and advertising. What have we done.
- mdanger007 6y agowe tell ourselves stories to live. politicians use stories too. but is the story of, say the american dream (51% of 18-34 year olds still live with their parents) less dangerous for politicians to tell than that of hollywood child sex rings? I dunno.
- spiderfarmer 6y agoA story that directly or indirectly harms people is always bad.
- Florin_Andrei 6y agoIt's a one-two punch. One one hand, mesianic movements tend to re-occur throughout history whenever populations are under prolonged stress for various reasons. Then you get the same thing all over again - some powerful figure shall rise, and is indeed rising as we speak, to deliver us all from our bondage. On the other hand, yes, the internet and social media have made it a lot easier for bullshit to spread out and take over the minds of millions. I don't think that combination was ever tried before. What have we done, indeed.
- hindsightbias 6y agoMight want to shut down Citi’s website until a security review can be performed.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoAs long as they're laundering money for drug cartels everything is fine. But god forbid they keep this guy on the payroll.
- peeebee 6y ago*they are. closet fascist.
- Medicalidiot 6y agoI didn't even think of that, but that's probably a good idea at this point.
- mansion7 6y agoWhy is that? Antifa, for example, is objectively a much greater threat to life and property, is anti-capitalist, and have been much more proactive in doxxing their political enemies, yet members and sympathizers are highly placed in Twitter, Google, US schools and colleges, the Democrat party, and many other sensitive locations. Are we to shut all of those down as well while an intensive security review is performed? Actually, that's not a bad idea.
- bornabox 6y agoDo people realise that Antifa simply means Anti-Fascist? Its origin is Antifaschistische Aktion during the Weimar Republic, though the current movement is ideologically a bit different. Still, it seems that "antifa" has been politically co-opted in the US and is not being used in the right context at all. How is Antifa objectively a threat to life and property?
- patrickaljord 6y ago
- Animats 6y ago"Security analyst"? Security as in protection, or as in asset?
- gnat 6y agoIf you have a question about an article posted to HN, try reading the article to see if it answers your question. "A LinkedIn profile for Gelinas says he works as an information security analyst at Citigroup. Citigroup declined to comment."
- rsynnott 6y ago> A LinkedIn profile for Gelinas says he works as an information security analyst at Citigroup.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoThis one is a little peculiar to me. It looks like this person was just taking what "Q" wrote on 8kun and adding it to a website. It wasn't a discussion board or place where theories originate from. Though it looks like he took the website down on his own.
- likeafox 6y agoQmap definitely had a direct relationship with Jim Watkins and 8kun. The full of extent of their partnership is not yet known but it appears Watkins was doing part of the infrastructure hosting for Qmap. There is also strong suspicion that Watkins either writes the current incarnation of 'Qanon' or directs whoever is writing the posts.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoOther than them both use vanwatech as their CDN, is there any other connection? Genuinely curious. Also, have you seen Jim Watkins or heard him speak? Let's just say I'd be very surprised if he's capable of maintaining the qanon movement.
- bmarquez 6y agoI've previously visited the site mentioned in the article and it's basically an RSS reader for "Q" posts. The webmaster didn't create any of the posts, just republished them so people wouldn't have to visit 8kun.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- MacsHeadroom 6y agoAbout a month ago it added a user posts section with comments- something like imgur. It also added a lot of metadata to Q posts and related discoverability features. For example, the page for a Q post that mentioned James Clapper and WWG1WGA would have a photo and "bio" of Clapper, definition of WWG1WGA, and show recent related posts based on the metadata for the lingo and person. It was a lot more than an RSS feed.
- s9w 6y agoThis is apparently okay and good because they're the bad guys. Even writing his full name, what the fuck. But god forbid someone says that other guys name is Siskind.
- newacct583 6y agoThe original analysis fingering this guy is here: https://www.logically.ai/articles/qanon-key-figure-man-from-new-jersey https://www.logically.ai/articles/qanon-key-figure-man-from-... It seems a little circumstantial to me, frustratingly. He was involved for sure in the QMap site that archived the Q posts. Whether that makes him "Q" is I guess unknowable. He certainly could have made himself Q if he wasn't originally. I mean... really there's no particular interest in Q's identity per se. Q didn't reveal any truths that were later confirmed, and got almost everything wrong in a factual sense. Exactly who wrote the posts is mostly academic.
- madeofpalk 6y ago> fingering this guy hmmm
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoThe article says "Key figure"? Am I missing something here? I feel a little bit crazy. This guy was just reposting content from 8kun on his own website and a Patreon. Anyone can build this website in 5 minutes. Did this guy know anything special about qanon or was it just a money making operation?
- newacct583 6y agoI didn't say "key figure". I think it's totally plausible this guy was just scraping content as a grift (he appeared to be making a decent amount of money from this app). I think it's unlikely that he was doing that without involvement or argumentation by 8kun, and per other posters here there has been reporting on connections between 8kun and qmap in the past. It strikes me as unlikely that QMap would have survived as it does without the sanction of 8kun. And as QAnon posts are only authenticatable in the context of 8kun's tripcodes, that seems to argue that they were in cahoots. It's not just a web scraping app, basically.
- phtrivier 6y agoThe beauty of Q is that it does not need to have any claim confirmed by anyone else : the very fact that the claims are not confirmed, or, even better, denied by the mainstream media is proof that the claims are true. That's just genius, and I'm kind of jealous not to be earning easy dollars this way as a non US citizen.
- quantified 6y agoWhy would anyone shut it down? Is the point to remain hidden and in-group only? If he’s outed, he’s out. Probably hasn’t dropped affiliations, but seems weird that it’s something to hide if it’s something he believes in.
- _up 6y agoWouldn't be that suprising if he got death threads and got scared.
- quantified 6y agoQAnon running scared from death threats would be out of character, wouldn’t it?
- _up 6y agoWe are talking about someone involved with a popular index site for QAnon posts, not QAnon or the operator of the "Image Board" QAnon uses to post his messages.
- reustle 6y agoInteresting that the title use to contain this info, but was changed: "A LinkedIn profile for Gelinas says he works as an information security analyst at Citigroup."