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Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They're finding QAnon instead.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/26/1007611/how-qanon-is-targeting-evangelicals/by Abby Ohlheiser (MiT Technology Review)
. . .That conspiracy-fueled frenzy was propelled in part by credulous mainstream news coverage, and by false accusations and even convictions of day-care owners. But evangelicals, in particular, embraced the claims, tuning in to a wave of televangelists who promised to help viewers spot secret satanic symbols and rituals in the secular world.
If the panic was back with fresh branding as QAnon, it had a new ally in Facebook. And Frailey wasnt sure where to turn for help. He posted in a private Facebook group for Oklahoma Baptist pastors, asking if anyone else was seeing what he was. The answer, repeatedly, was yes.
The pastors traded links. Frailey read everything he could about QAnon. He listened to every episode of the New York Times podcast series Rabbit Hole, on what happens when our lives move online, and devoured a story in the Atlantic that framed QAnon as a new religion infused with the language of Christianity. To Frailey, it felt more like a cult.
He began to look further back into the Facebook history of the young former member who had posted the fake Harris quote. In the past, he remembered, she had posted about her kids every day. In June and July, he saw, that had shifted. Instead of talking about her family, she was now promoting QAnonand one member of the couple that had met with him in May was there in the comments, posting in solidarity.
Suddenly he understood that his efforts to protect his congregation from covid-19 had contributed to a different sort of infection. Like thousands of other church leaders across the United States, Frailey had shut down in-person services in March to help prevent the spread of the virus. Without these gatherings, some of his churchgoers had turned instead to Facebook, podcasts, and viral memes for guidance. And QAnon, a movement with its own equivalents of scripture, prophecies, and clergy, was there waiting for them.
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Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They're finding QAnon instead. (Original Post)
swag
Sep 2020
OP
zaj
(3,433 posts)1. That's the purpose of propaganda...
... it's not for everyday people, it's for authoritarian followers.
It is always hard for me to understand how weak minded many people seem to be. Their beliefs power their perception, not the other way around.