https://youtu.be/V1bFr2SWP1I
https://twitter.com/shorensteinctr
https://twitter.com/thewilsoncenter
https://twitter.com/aletheagroup?lang=en
https://twitter.com/CindyOtis_/status/1315048597872930817
Q1316 May 4 2018 20:47:29 (EST) Mary McCord, Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division - FIRED/FORCE
Q2381 Oct 9 2018 20:42:13 (EST) Mary McCord, Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division - FIRED/FORCED
Q2970 Sep 3 2018 19:01:25 (EST) Mary Cord, Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division - FIRED/FORCED
Mary McCord is legal director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center. She's been researching legal tools to help jurisdictions deal with the resurgence of armed militia groups.
Mary McCord, welcome back to the program. Thanks for joining us.
MARY MCCORD: Thank you for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: And Cindy Otis is a former CIA analyst and the vice president of analysis for the Alethea Group. They track online threats and disinformation. And she is with us now.
Cindy Otis, welcome to you as well. Welcome back.
CINDY OTIS: Thanks, Michel.
MARTIN: Mary McCord, I wanted to start with you because one of the first questions that we wanted to ask is how can these groups even exist and whether or not they are actually permitted under the Constitution. This week, you wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in which you state that these kinds of militia groups have no constitutional right to exist. And I ask because I think some people might believe that these groups are legal under the Second Amendment, given its provision for a well-regulated militia. Can you explain that for us?
OTIS: Absolutely. That is the language that many of these groups point to. But well-regulated means well-regulated by the state, by the government. So even pre-independence in the colonies, when there was an antipathy towards standing armies - they didn't want to have a standing army - so what they did is they said, we will have a militia.
Militia means all able-bodied residents between certain ages who are available to be called forth by the government in defense of the state. And once called forth, they answer to the government. They're trained by the government. They're directed and regulated by the government. That was, of course, baked into the Second Amendment, and it's baked into the constitutions of the states as well. So there's no ability for groups of individuals to sort of call themselves forth.
MARTIN: So let's turn to Cindy Otis now. As we mentioned, the FBI affidavit lays out many of the ways that this plot was foreshadowed on various online platforms, including Facebook. I just wanted to ask, what is the role of social media in organizing these groups?
OTIS: So with the militia groups - or these groups that identify as militias - they have an extensive and have had an extensive presence on platforms like Facebook for quite some time. And that's because Facebook in particular has increasingly moved to in recent years the idea of building communities.
It talks about communities as, you know, very pleasant things. Like, if you're a travel enthusiast, for example, we'll help you connect with the other travel enthusiasts through our algorithm, which is based on - you know, based on what you click on. What content you're looking at, we will show you similar content. But that's also been the case for people who are - you know, respond to violent messages, messages that are racist, you know, harmful content.
So the technology, the platform of platforms like Facebook is set up to bring those individuals together, and that's essentially what it was doing for these individuals. You didn't have to go hunting or recruiting necessarily if you were operating or you were a member of one of these pages and groups. Facebook was actively recommending these pages and groups to other people who might end up potentially joining you.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/10/922679215/the-legality-of-private-militias
https://twitter.com/CindyOtis_/status/1315048597872930817
>https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=1092
https://graphika.com/reports/interpreting-social-qs-implications-of-the-evolution-of-qanon/
https://twitter.com/BostonJoan/status/1316204962230292481>>11062188
https://graphika.com/reports/interpreting-social-qs-implications-of-the-evolution-of-qanon/
GRAPHIKA REPORT
Monday August 24, 2020
Interpreting Social Qs: Implications of the Evolution of QAnon
Melanie Smith
The past few months have seen a wealth of mainstream news reporting on the conspiratorial social media movement known as QAnon. Some of these news pieces have charted its growth in the Covid-19 era, documented the presence of its supporters on Twitter and Facebook and covered the recent actions taken by these platforms to restrict its influence.
Graphika has been analyzing the QAnon community on an ongoing basis for over two years, developing a set of network maps that allow for an understanding of how this movement has changed over time. This includes regular assessments of the movement’s potential to cause real-world harm as a result of its involvement in topics like Covid-19 and the worldwide protests that began after the murder of George Floyd. Frequently discussed in publications about QAnon is the FBI’s decision to designate the movement a domestic terrorism threat in August of last year - while Graphika understands the majority of QAnon content to be innocuous, there are a number of situations in which this potential harm has become realized.
Read the full report here
https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_report_interpreting_social_qs.pdf
Graphika has been analyzing the QAnon community on an ongoing basis for over two years,
developing a set of network maps that allow for an understanding of how this movement has
changed over time. This includes regular assessments of the movement’s potential to cause
real-world harm as a result of its involvement in topics like Covid-19 and the worldwide protests
that began after the murder of George Floyd. Frequently discussed in publications about QAnon is
the FBI’s decision to designate the movement a domestic terrorism threat in August of last year -
while Graphika understands the majority of QAnon content to be innocuous, there are a number
of situations in which this potential harm has become realized.
When we first mapped the network of QAnon supporters in June 2018, it was the most dense
conspiratorial network Graphika had ever studied. This means that accounts engaged in QAnon
theories at the time had an astounding rate of mutual followership and represented an extremely
tight-knit online community. The likelihood with a community this dense is that accounts are
exposed to, and engage with, very similar content to each other. Despite its significant growth and
undeniable ‘mainstreaming’ over the past two years, QAnon continues to be exactly such a
community.
1
After closely observing the evolution of the movement, this briefing lays out three concerns
regarding the threat posed by the QAnon movement to the US elections in November, and to
democratic processes worldwide:
Conclusion
QAnon remains the most densely interconnected conspiratorial network that Graphika has
studied. The evolution of this movement over the past two years indicates an increasing
autonomy from mainstream right-wing online groups in the US, however network analysis
suggests that these groups still prove useful for the amplification of QAnon messaging. As the US
election draws closer, and public debate over Covid-19 continues, QAnon is likely to appeal to a
number of distinct online communities with similar messaging. This will make it increasingly
difficult to detect and disambiguate content and activity specific to the QAnon movement. Even in
16
the past few weeks, there have been well-attended rallies and demonstrations centered around
QAnon-adjacent causes taking place in many US cities. This appetite for offline participation
raises security concerns and will likely entail a spike in exposure for QAnon slogans and rallying
cries.
QAnon’s highly malleable ideology, coupled with its capacity for rapid content dissemination,
allows the movement to appeal to new members by blending current events in the news cycle
into an overarching anti-government worldview. This adaptability presents an opportunity for
foreign actors to leverage the community by manipulating specific narratives that align with their
interests. While no significant attempts to take advantage of the QAnon community for specific
US election outcomes have been observed as of yet, this continues to be a possibility.
Meanwhile, QAnon theories and causes are finding purchase outside of the US as new national
communities begin to apply these concepts to their local political landscapes and figures. The
development of these relatively independent online ecosystems, which often have their own
distinct influencers and terminologies, warrants greater attention. The international chapters of
QAnon present a concern not only for democratic processes worldwide but also for the
deterioration of trust in institutions.
https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_report_interpreting_social_qs.pdf