QAnon, conspiracy theories and social media warfare: An ethical and anticipatory ethical analysis

Abstract

In today’s social media dominated world the effort to undermine democracy comes in an increasingly wide variety of forms. One example is the use of social media by contemporary leaders and groups where they engage in waging information warfare within their own nations upon their own citizens. This paper will examine how this has occurred with the group QANON. One of QANON’s central conspiracy theories maintains that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is not only in control of running the world’s governments, but this cabal is also running a global child sex-trafficking ring. This cabal is also involved in plotting against US President Donald Trump, who is in turn engaged in combatting the cabal. Another QANON theory also claims that Trump is planning a day of reckoning against the cabal and its followers known as “The Storm.” This refers to an event when thousands of members of the supposed cabal will be arrested. There are currently no indications that any part of the theory is based on fact. The conspiracy theory began with an October 2017 online post by a supposed individual known as ‘Q’, who at the time was presumed to be a single American citizen. It is now also assumed and more likely that Q is actually a group of people. Q as an individual claimed to be a high-ranking government official with Q level clearance in the U.S. government with access to classified information related to the Trump administration. Perhaps more significantly Q also claimed to have classified information about the opponents of Trump in the United States. NBC News was the first member of the media to report that three distinct people took the original Q post and distributed it across multiple media and social media platforms in an effort to build an internet following. We take the activities related to Q to be a method of Hybrid Warfare, which here is defined in the context of social media. Hybrid warfare which is now often practiced in all forms of media but particularly within social media, does not have a universally recognized definition. In this analysis the phrase is employed to describe how any individual or group such as QANON can employ non-military tactics in social media in the effort to undermine and destabilize a government. We argue that disinformation and propaganda dissemination, are not new techniques, but that they have been adapted to current technologies and social media. It is assumed in this analysis that every conspiracy theory, when a conspiracy is identified, presents a moral issue. When a conspiracy theory is presented as an explanation for an action or as the cause of an event this serves the function of making an accusation. The accusation that lies at the center of the conspiracy is an attack upon the truthfulness of what is claimed to be true by the party that the conspiracy theorist is attacking. This analysis has as its goal an identification of the ethical issues with conspiracy theories used by political leaders and groups such as QANON in social media and attempts to anticipate ethical and political issues with the continued use of these conspiracy theories in social media in cthe effort to undermine democracy.