The mind-boggling conspiracy theories peddled by the QAnon movement are being fanned by countries with a vested interest in destabilizing the U.S., says a former U.S. terrorism official.
Browsing: Social Media
Social media firms have been scrambling to crack down on domestic terrorist threats ahead of the inauguration and beyond, but experts say their efforts are only temporary solutions. For one thing, the lack of industry-wide coordination around the issue means fringe movements can easily migrate to smaller platforms, and often darker corners of the web, say the experts.
Social media played a key role in Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol Building, with sites favored by the far-right such as Parler and Gab sharing information on which streets to take to avoid the police and which tools would pry open doors. Meanwhile, Facebook announced it will ban President Trump “indefinitely.”
Despite indictments, Russian saboteurs–some linked to the Russian military–have targeted millions of employees of major U.S. firms in a new escalation of East-West cyberwarfare. Chinese and North Korean hackers are also becoming a distributor of “weaponized” social media, according to security experts.
By turning suspects’ mugshots into comment-ready themed posts such as #ThugThursdays, #FelonFridays, and “Ladies’ Night,” are police and jailers encouraging better police-community relations, or just the opposite?