While social media platforms did not create QAnon, they helped it go mainstream via recommendation systems designed to prioritize engagement
or, more accurately, their inaction — to where we are today.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : Really glad that @cwarzel is situating this in Facebook's 2017 decision to prioritize group membership, an amazingly arrogant initiative that was clearly dangerous from the start, given FB's track record of reckless experimentation and carelessness https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... @nytopinion : “The stewards of the Big Tech platforms surely didn't envision QAnon when they sought to connect the world. But they should have. Because the movement leveraged all the platforms' tools exactly as they were intended to be used,” @cwarzel writes. https://www.nytimes.com/... Julia Alexander / @loudmouthjulia : Great column from @cwarzel on Q, that also acts as a nice tribute to reporters who have spent years telling people “this is insane and it's going to become more insane and then it's going to become uncontrollable.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : The Zuckerberg quote at the end is a real kicker, Charlie. A kick in the gut. https://twitter.com/... Laura Allison Keiter / @lauraakeiter : A must read from Charlie. At @mmfa we've been following QAnon for so long it's a good reminder that until this week most Americans had no idea that the QAnon conspiracy existed, let alone just how dangerous it is. https://twitter.com/... Tony Romm / @tonyromm : it's almost like researchers have been warning for years that facebook groups are basically radicalization bubbles, incubating conspiracies that are then pushed to the top of users' news feeds, with little recourse from facebook itself. https://twitter.com/... Hamza Shaban / @hshaban : Alex Kaplan, a researcher for the media watchdog group Media Matters for America: “Politicians see the infrastructure QAnon has built on these platforms. They recognize it as increasing in power and see it as having a political benefit” https://www.nytimes.com/... Ben Collins / @oneunderscore__ : QAnon is not just a political, pro-Trump idea anymore. It's enrapturing the wellness community. Trump, as a savior, is just a means to an end to save the children. If you're wondering why your non-political friends are talking like this now, that's why. https://www.nbcnews.com/... Drew Harwell / @drewharwell : Conspiracy theories are built on people wanting finally to feel like they belong. They're insular support systems based around lifting up Us (and villifying Them), sort of like, well, most social-media bubbles and online groups. Today it's Plandemic, Q, anti-vax BS; tomorrow ... https://twitter.com/... Hamza Shaban / @hshaban : At least 20 people on the ballot in November support or have spoken favorably of QAnon, according to Media Matters Their ascendance and that of QAnon groups has been fueled by the recommendation algorithms and amplification of Facebook, YouTube & Twitter https://www.nytimes.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : one thing i tried to link is how the tech platforms allowing the QAnon movement to grow at scale with its infrastructure has also led craven politicians to seek it out and endorse it. It's a cheat code for engagement/exposure as @AlKapDC explains https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Peter Kafka / @pkafka : Very good from @cwarzel https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : I wrote about how it seems a lot of the country started looking at QAnon differently this week - less as a sideshow and more like a threat. https://www.nytimes.com/... Ben Collins / @oneunderscore__ : So! You probably know Melissa Rein Lively as QAnon Karen. She trashed the mask section of a Target, then said she was “QAnon's spokesperson.” Five months before that, she “bought a hazmat suit,” freaked out about COVID. What changed? Her Facebook groups. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
New York TimesCharlie Warzel
Context & Ripple Effects
This op-ed lands mid-arc: Facebook had already signaled a crackdown on QAnon coordinated with Twitter, and Twitter had already shown enforcement can work — pulling QAnon tweets from Trends and recommendations produced a 50% drop in impressions. The piece's argument is that the movement's reach traces to design choices, notably Facebook's 2017 decision to prioritize group membership, which turned groups into incubation bubbles for conspiracies.
The stakes are electoral and cross-platform. Media Matters counts at least 20 QAnon-sympathetic candidates on the November ballot, some of whom used the platforms' engagement infrastructure as a shortcut to exposure, and the conspiracy has since spread into the wellness community — the movement's seep from web to offline life predates any enforcement.
Twitter's July removal of QAnon from Trends and recommendations — with its measured 50% impression drop — becomes the reference point for what effective algorithmic enforcement looks like, sharpening scrutiny of Facebook's gap between announcement and outcome.
Second-order effects
Other networks face the same enforcement question on their own turf: LinkedIn is limiting QAnon's spread but stops short of sanctioning members who display support on profiles, a half-measure that invites the same criticism Facebook now faces.
Politicians who leaned on platform engagement for QAnon-friendly exposure now confront platforms that restrict QAnon content from politicians, cutting off the distribution channel that made the movement a campaign shortcut.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — announcement, incomplete enforcement, recommendation engines still surfacing the content — the structural lesson is that engagement-optimized ranking systems will keep regenerating whatever they are told to suppress, pushing platforms toward policing their own architecture rather than individual accounts.
A movement that has crossed into politics and wellness shows how conspiracy content, once embedded in group infrastructure, outlives content moderation — making the design decisions of 2017, not the takedowns of 2020, the durable variable.
The trend: Platforms are discovering that engagement-optimized recommendation systems, not user content alone, are the vector for conspiracy mainstreaming — forcing enforcement to move from takedowns to algorithmic design.
This is the first slide of a talk I've been giving for years. Facebook's “community” pivot was always a growth grab for a company that consistently broke its users' trust. Internal sources have said the users actually hate it. And now we know it's also bad for the world. https://…
@cwarzel @oneunderscore__ .@cwarzel what a lame excuse from Zuck. You never know how it will turn out, really? When building & releasing a product - a platform, a drug, a drone, etc. - it's your responsibility on all the uses - good or evil. You can miss something. He's great at …
@cwarzel The problem is the average Joe still hasn't heard of it, and when I explained (!) it to an apolitical relative of mine the other day, they - not surprisingly - laughed and treated it like a weird joke.
“QAnon is a product of the modern algorithmically powered internet...” @cwarzel is correct Algorithms are fine for entertainment and shopping but catastrophic for an informed public. https://www.nytimes.com/...
“QAnon is a product of the modern algorithmically powered internet ... the movement leveraged all the platforms' tools exactly as they were intended to be used.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
QAnon has millions of subscribers. It is not a fringe outfit anymore and should register as a very real and dangerous threat on Americans' radar. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Conspiracy-theorist QAnon groups have millions of members on Facebook, documents show The preliminary results of an investigation by Facebook shed new light on the scope of activity and content from the QAnon community on the platform. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
This is the same group suggestion “feature” that promoted white supremacist groups. But what's important is they are connecting people. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
After nearly three years, this feels like the week QAnon tipped over into the mainstream as a legitimate threat. For those who've been following and reporting on it since its earliest days, this week has been disorienting and disheartening, @cwarzel says. https://www.nytimes.com/…
This QAnon stuff really is pushing further and further into the mainstream. I'm seeing it more and more from people I actually know. https://twitter.com/...
“The top 10 groups identified in the investigation collectively contain more than 1 million members, with totals from more top groups and pages pushing the number of members and followers past 3 million.” 5/ https://www.nbcnews.com/...
They gamed Facebook and other platforms. Why didn't those platforms isolate and stop the dangerous QAnon group before it poisoned America? https://www.nytimes.com/... @cwarzel
“While the social media platforms didn't create QAnon, they created the conditions for it to thrive,” @cwarzel argues. “One can draw a straight line from these companies' decisions — or, more accurately, their inaction — to where we are today.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Really glad that @cwarzel is situating this in Facebook's 2017 decision to prioritize group membership, an amazingly arrogant initiative that was clearly dangerous from the start, given FB's track record of reckless experimentation and carelessness https://www.nytimes.com/... htt…
“The stewards of the Big Tech platforms surely didn't envision QAnon when they sought to connect the world. But they should have. Because the movement leveraged all the platforms' tools exactly as they were intended to be used,” @cwarzel writes. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Great column from @cwarzel on Q, that also acts as a nice tribute to reporters who have spent years telling people “this is insane and it's going to become more insane and then it's going to become uncontrollable.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
A must read from Charlie. At @mmfa we've been following QAnon for so long it's a good reminder that until this week most Americans had no idea that the QAnon conspiracy existed, let alone just how dangerous it is. https://twitter.com/...
it's almost like researchers have been warning for years that facebook groups are basically radicalization bubbles, incubating conspiracies that are then pushed to the top of users' news feeds, with little recourse from facebook itself. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Kaplan, a researcher for the media watchdog group Media Matters for America: “Politicians see the infrastructure QAnon has built on these platforms. They recognize it as increasing in power and see it as having a political benefit” https://www.nytimes.com/...
QAnon is not just a political, pro-Trump idea anymore. It's enrapturing the wellness community. Trump, as a savior, is just a means to an end to save the children. If you're wondering why your non-political friends are talking like this now, that's why. https://www.nbcnews.com/..…
Conspiracy theories are built on people wanting finally to feel like they belong. They're insular support systems based around lifting up Us (and villifying Them), sort of like, well, most social-media bubbles and online groups. Today it's Plandemic, Q, anti-vax BS; tomorrow ... …
At least 20 people on the ballot in November support or have spoken favorably of QAnon, according to Media Matters Their ascendance and that of QAnon groups has been fueled by the recommendation algorithms and amplification of Facebook, YouTube & Twitter https://www.nytimes.com/.…
one thing i tried to link is how the tech platforms allowing the QAnon movement to grow at scale with its infrastructure has also led craven politicians to seek it out and endorse it. It's a cheat code for engagement/exposure as @AlKapDC explains https://www.nytimes.com/... https…
I wrote about how it seems a lot of the country started looking at QAnon differently this week - less as a sideshow and more like a threat. https://www.nytimes.com/...
So! You probably know Melissa Rein Lively as QAnon Karen. She trashed the mask section of a Target, then said she was “QAnon's spokesperson.” Five months before that, she “bought a hazmat suit,” freaked out about COVID. What changed? Her Facebook groups. https://www.nbcnews.com/.…