What Can You Do About QAnon? | NYT Opinion

A global cabal of celebrity pedophiles? Trafficked children being sold online through a furniture website? And Donald Trump about to rescue us from it all?

These QAnon conspiracy theories are so outlandish — not to mention demonstrably untrue — it feels like the natural response … is laughter and mockery.

But according to documentary filmmaker Kirby Ferguson, that’s the opposite of what you should do. Dunking on fools may feel good, but humiliating QAnoners risks driving them further down the rabbit hole. And you should care because you might have a QAnon believer among your friends or family — and on Nov. 3, it’s possible several will be elected to Congress. Q is not going anywhere soon. So what can you do?

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100+ comentarios:

Valentina Giorgi:

In the 2000s, parents told us to not to believe everyhing you read on internet. Nowadays, we have to tell them the same

Danielle Calderon:

Who is watching this after the Capitol riot

Adrian:

The whole save the children thing reminds me a lot of the satanic panic in the 80's, except worse.

Izabella:

This. didnt. age. well. THEY STORMED THE CAPITOL

halneufmille:

"One should not believe everything on the Internet."

- Abraham Lincoln

Business Solutions, LLC:

Are they trying to save all children 🤔 Like the ones in cages at the bored or just white kids?

Muhammad.Anugerah.A:

By the time you lose half of your *IQ* and leave only *Q* left.

LordMerekIV:

this is the consequence of killing real journalism

Lauren M:

Easier said than done. It's incredibly painful to watch a family member be sucked into this stuff, especially a parent. Chances are the person was already a little "off" before getting into this stuff. There is often mental illness, isolation, poverty, or other factors involved. Attempting to reason with them Does. Not. Work. You can pour in all the time and gentle questioning in the world and still be told that you are a pedophile if you do not support Qanon. At some point it's unhealthy to keep sinking emotional labor and energy into a bottomless pit of insanity. That is why so many people cut family members off. Because its the only way to save our own mental health.

William Chui:

People need to grow up and accept the fact they are sometimes wrong. This does not degrade or make you inferior person, but a natural process to make you a more complete person with broader knowledge and insights to complicated issues.

Gregor Meisen:

Fun fact: Mick West, debunker of conspiracy theories, was a co-founder of Neversoft, the developer that gave us, among others, the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games. So thank you on multiple levels Mr. West!

ctwwtc:

I often wonder what the world would look life if social media never existed

Ashia:

The hard thing about trying to disprove conspiracies is that the very evidence you produce to disprove them is what further sentiments their beliefs, as any evidence is considered “false” or perpetuated by “those seeking to keep the truth hidden”; it’s tricky stuff

tucciproducer:

John Stewart said it best, "I'm asked all the time to evaluate my culpability in radicalizing the right, while fox News is never asked to evaluate themselves."

Quan Nguyen:

Dunning-Kruger effect it the grandest of scales.

Krazie Ivan:

so tired of treating grown adults with kid-gloves just because they're likely to react even less rational, or possibly with violence. humanity should be so far past all this garbage by now... with the heights of tech & methods of scientific research we've hit, along with the ability to carry around access to history & knowledge. an inter-connectedness that should be showing us how similar we are, not used to divide further. WTF. exhausted & sad...

Gerry Garcia:

I believe Qanon NEEDS to be taken apart and done away with. The fact that ANY politician has aligned themselves with them should mean immediate termination.

Daniel Nuño:

-wearing a wire
-in front of a microphone
-in front of a camera
- in front of hundreds of millions of people

Ya makes sense

Mildred Urena:

Oh my God! This is like going back to the dark ages. I'm so glad I took the time to find out what Qanon was. How on Earth did America get to this?

Li Hung:

Hey kids, this video applies to everything in life, not just Qanon

Tta J:

This is actually pretty serious!!!!! Even though it seems ridiculous I’ve had really close people to me believe in this with their hearts and souls! If you laugh or make fun of them, then it also intensifies their beliefs! Something has to be done and I’m telling you I’m desperate! I want my family back!

Gediminas Bulatovas:

And here I thought that the internet has long since decided that feeding the trolls is not the way to go...

Dawn Smith:

Q believers often cut others off who don’t believe how they believe especially when they are evangelical and Q.

13:

"They're not mentally ill" hmmmmmm

Adian Chowdhury:

Most conspiracies rely on 2 fallacies:
1: There is nothing disproving my claim, so it must be correct
When you make the claim, you supply the proof. If somebody claims that he saw a unicorn, you don't go out of your way to prove him wrong. You ask, where is the photograph, or video, or any other reasonable evidence
2: Coolrolation DOES NOT equal causation. Just because two things happened in a certain time frame, it doesn't necessarily mean one caused the other. They could have happened together out of coincidence, or they can be caused by something different. It's like saying that since you ate chips and then you tripped on your shoelaces, that the chips caused you to trip.

99% of conspiracies rely on these two fallacies, and they are the conspiracies' weaknesses.

Lander Reyniers:

They have the "Q", we just need to give them the "I".

iNeverCouldGetTheHangOfThursdays:

Stares directly into the sun and points at it - 5D chess.

Achiles Redemptia:

with the era of internet, this kind community is not really surprising actually 🙄

rob beach:

‘The earth is 6000 years old’
‘But what about dinosaur bones?’
‘God put them there to test our faith’
Religion. The original conspiracy theory

Patricia Hayes:

Amazing that a lot of these QAnon people look like they've escaped from a psychiatric hospital.

Rosanna Flores:

"Think of how stupid the average person is,,, and realize half of them are stupider than that"

George Carlin-

Dre Jackson:

Yeah they arenot coming back to reality. Being nice and trying to understand doesn't seem to work. I.E - January 6th, 2021

RJ Abundo:

When you've lost hope and fulfillment and detached yourself from reality, you resort to conspiracies

CT 4040 Cutup:

"Anarchism has never worked"
Spain, Ukraine and Rojava would care to disagree.

Larisa 7:

I really enjoyed the simplicity n breakdown of this Story, thank you for reporting thank you very much

Chance Jin-Koh:

One of the hardest things to do is remain open to the fact that you could be wrong.

Pepins Spot:

I gave up a while ago trying to "influence" people. They will reject all the information in the world you give them. I just let them believe what they will and not talk to them anymore. Saved me tons of head aches.

CNN NPC:

"epstein killed himself. epstein killed himself. epstein killed himself." - NYTimes

repeat x10

Geoff Taylor:

Qanon: Trailer-Park Scientology...

Hermes Agoraeus:

8:47 _Imagine_ a comments section either kind and gentle, or neutral.

No You:

4:47 lmao that’s so accurate

Boa:

Qrazies ANONymous! We really need to start a twelve step program for these people. It’s going to take them a long time to get out of the mind set.

Shawn Schick:

As a "thinker" when do I get to have my psychotic break?

Ricardo Rocha:

“Where is Hunter” ? “Come on man” :))

Saifè Babay:

say it with me "conformation bias"

Celia Speth:

lol anyone here after the qanons invaded our capitol?

Johnny Lotto:

I love how this ends with how to treat someone who’s been infected by Qanon.

Weronika Krähe:

I love this videos message - we all make mistakes. Thank you!

SateliteMike DataPro:

They said the same thing about LDS and scientology

painterbw:

Question: "What Can You Do About QAnon? Answer: Not one f*****g thing!

Myndi Mc:

This helps allot. I just hope my twin sister gets “bored” with it because she has slipped into a rabbit hole deeper than the pacific.

Nick:

"Theres something wrong with this man"

Melissa O:

Well done ! Thank you for the much needed advice on what to do about a Q-Anon supporter !

Dada Haiku:

I question them relentlessly. 😂

Papa Robotnik:

This is the most beautiful advice, ever ❤

poibella:

Hegemonic narrative comes out against anarchism. So brave.

Surge:

Qanon peeps think they’re Nick Cage from National Treasure. This ain’t Da Vinci Code guys.

nate k:

weird that you put up a picture of Noam Chomsky with pictures of the CHAZ......... Chomsky has only ever talked about anarchy within the abstract realm of political theory. His lifetime of activism and academic achievement extends so much further. He had very little to say about the CHAZ in Seattle this summer and certainly didn't champion the idea. The New York times reaches a huge audience, and many of them may have never heard of Chomsky. Extremely irresponsible and honestly a little unsettling to see him pop up in this context.

Grant Anderson:

👏👏👏

Darrel Dugan:

It’s truly amazing that so many of modern mankind can be so deeply and easily sucked into a 15th century mentality! True ignorance!

amanda farish:

Thank you for expressing the internal struggle of falling down the rabbit hole that is human psychology in 2020.

Miller Four:

10:06

Mister Mister:

I'm not afraid of admitting when I'm wrong
I'm afraid when someone else fights to prevent admitting they're wrong despite the objective evidence and it at one point makes you question reality

Bert Lammens:

Oh no people believe in conspiracy theories!! We must censor!!

random Swiftie:

This was a great video thank you for the help!

Dori C:

For anyone curious I highly reccommend a video by Folding Ideas called "in search of a flat earth".

He goes into the mindset of these consperacy theories and why trying to disprove them it a fool's errand. The people who believe these things aren't looking for facts, they're looking for confirmation.

gxd7171 *:

5:02 It's our boy Jreg!

Oliver Quach:

Yes!! Thank you so much for this! Take it from me, I have people very close to me who I love very much who are anti-vaxxers. Ridicule, mockery, insults or isolation are NOT effective in changing anyone’s mind. Anti-vaxxers deep down think they’re doing right by their children the same way we all do. My advice is to take it slow, they didn’t succumb to misinformation overnight and you can’t expect them to come back around overnight either.

A lot of people still don’t understand this. I’ll be sharing this video around! Thanks for making this.

Sarah Marjorie Lyon:

contra!!! <3 i love my biological mother

William Crosswhite:

This was an amazing video and I look forward to more videos like it.

Félix R.A.:

I've been kind, comprehensive, not insulting, etc. Sent straight facts to rectify crazy claims... and got blocked. What else?

Napoléon I Bonaparte:

Ah yes, the same people as believing in Televangelists...

Mukhdoom Ali:

This on it's own is kinda condescending tbh :p

TheAdventurer24:

This is a beautiful video. Thank you very much.

Akosua Boahemaa:

Its an incoherent set of nonsense causing real world harms. It is a problem.

Hannah Sharma:

The 4d chess thing just sends me lol I'm so lost

kcjazzy:

Thank you for this video. It was very insightful. I still think education matters but I will try and be more sympathatic.

politicjunkee:

LMAO! This is the biggest pile of 💩 video I’ve ever seen. Claims to be evidence seeker with no evidence. Hilarious.

Andrew Johnson:

Great video. Substantive content. Needed message.

Consider re-posting this with the title “What Q-Anon gets right”

It would be a Clickbait version of the title, but more welcoming to those who need to hear it most, and representative of the reasonable evenhanded tone called for.

Robby Huang:

I knew I recognized that voice! Kirby Ferguson, outstanding work as always.

V Vs:

Jefferey epstein killed himself
Hm🤔

R Y:

I just knew there had to be more to covfefe. I knew it.

Key Carroll:

WWG1WGA

Michael Niemeyer:

It's interesting how this video omits all the antisemitism involved in the Qanon conspiracy. Quite an oversight!

Daniel Nahim Georgr Ferretis:

How to deal with them?, simple : A LOADED SHOTGUN!

Bayu Aditya H:

Nah, if someone spread false information on my inner groups, I just share to them a link to our ministry of information website that say that spreading hoaxes can lead you to jail. Works every times.

David Kile:

The advice on how to deal with Q Anons is probably right as far as what would be most effective, but a lot of us are just so tired of being told that it's our fault that the alt right / conspiracy people / Trumpers are the way they are. When do 'evidence seekers' and liberals get to have a break from always being the adults in the room?

Sean Collins:

Thank you.

11photographer 11:

5:04 Telugu

RealWords14k:

Wow perfect timing to drip this huh?

RODOLFO PEREZ:

BEAUTIFUL!!!

Wolfthrone:

"You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, (the internet) that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better"
- William Tecumseh Sherman -

John:

"Q" is Jim Watkins... Creator of 8chan

C:

This is really useful. Especially on how to deal with QAnon.

Spanky McAnus:

This is really such a great unbiased video

stiletto:

Get Well Soon, America.

@MissQueeennn:

Like this video X's 100 !! #Deradicalize 🙏❤

Tom Sawyer:

I’m dropping out...

Murphy Thomas:

insane

MiamiOle:

I have literally shared all of the advice at the end of the video and none of it worked. On my family, on my friends, in person, and on the internet. Literally some of the most educated and functional people I know become information illiterate when it comes to this conspiracy stuff. Fortunately it's a small group of my friends but they are dedicated and I fear dangerous.