Disinformation Pundits Unhappy With HBO’s QAnon Series Trailer

The teaser video for Q: In the storm, an upcoming HBO documentary series on the QAnon conspiracy movement has many deplatforming experts involved; it feels more like a glimpse of a spy thriller than a close examination of the umbrella group of conspiracy theories.

The breathless tone can be effective in creating a hype, but many disinformation experts are concerned. Ben Collins, one of the leading reporters covering radicalization online, tweeted that the trailer was “marketed in such a way that it could recruit more people.” Promoted by HBO as a series that “plots a labyrinthine journey to unmask the mastermind behind QAnon,” critics pointed out that the trailer looked a lot like “a recruitment video for Q. “

Joan Donovan, research director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, said The edge that by portraying Q as edgy and exciting, the trailer might draw even more people to the cause.

“The most worrying aspect for me is that reusing footage found online pieced together in 6 hours of conspiratorial content will be validation of the contemporary movement and generate more content / interest,” Donovan said in a message to The edge. “It’s not like we’re 5 years from the insurgency. Q influencers will use the fact of their participation in the documentary to undermine more people for donations and build a more loyal following at a time when many are struggling to contain this anti-Semitic and racist networked plot.

It’s hard to say how much of these concerns will spill over into the documentary itself. The trailer is less than a minute long and the documentary series is the result of a three-year global investigation, according to HBO. So it’s possible that the series hits the right tone in how it presents QAnon and its origins, as well as its future. The press release announcing the series says it “will examine QAnon’s influence on American culture and question the consequences of unfettered free speech permeating the darkest corners of the Internet.”

Donovan said she hoped the trailer was a hoax and that the film itself showed people how believing in QAnon ruined their relationships with family and friends, but she was not optimistic. “Somehow I doubt that is the case,” she said.

QAnon began 4chan in 2017, when an anonymous person posted as “Q Clearance Patriot” said they had access to classified information showing then President Donald Trump was fighting a global cabal pedophiles, whose ranks included celebrities and Democratic politicians. Supporters of QAnon have also strongly attributed to the view – falsely pushed by Trump – that the 2020 presidential election has been stolen, and many Q supporters have been linked to the Jan.6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Journalists struggled to find the best way to cover QAnon; by reporting without being sufficiently up-to-date, news organizations ran the risk of amplifying and legitimizing some of the group’s most dangerous opinions. At the same time, ignoring QAnon’s followers or dismissing them as marginalized could allow him to metastasize. One of HBO’s promotions for Q: In the storm vowed that the series will “pull the curtain back” on the group, but without the right context, could still cloud audience understanding of QAnon and its reach.

At its peak, there were thousands of Facebook groups and Q-related accounts on Twitter and Reddit. Most platforms have banned, or attempted to ban, Q-related content and hashtags, but with mixed success. “QAnon relies on centuries-old anti-Jewish tropes and anti-Black narratives of the modern civil rights movement,” says Donovan. “But it’s not that complicated.”

HBO declined to comment.