Belief in QAnon Wavers Slightly Among Adults After Capitol Riots, Inauguration

Focusing energy on moderating QAnon’s social media forums seems to be the most fruitful approach to stemming the tide of misinformation. Sixty-one percent of the 213 adults who said they believe QAnon’s ideas are accurate said they got their information about the group from social media, compared with 35 percent who pointed to internet forums and 34 percent who cited the mainstream media.

But Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, a media watchdog that monitors “conservative misinformation,” said many of the measures taken by mainstream social media sites appear to be reactionary and not preventive, an approach that he said falls short of fully combatting the growth of QAnon and other extremist groups.

“If they focused on more of the prevention work, we wouldn’t have to always go through these banned boom-and-bust cycles,” Carusone said. “Because of the mass exoduses that they started to create, it doesn’t mean that those people disappeared. They’re still organizing.”

Many predict that QAnon believers aren’t going anywhere long term. Fifty-four percent of survey respondents — and 55 percent of those who positively engage in QAnon content — said that even if the group’s central theories are disproven, they expect adherents to keep believing in the movement.

The share of adults who said they believe the spread of QAnon theories on social media is a major problem has also increased since October, with 47 percent saying so in the latest survey compared to 40 percent previously.

While the number of believers seems to be wavering slightly, Carusone is still worried about what will happen now that Trump, who was seen as a central authoritative figure to the group’s theories, is out of office and they’re without a clear public figurehead.

“You now have a lot of people who are basically just raw nerves exposed, that really still believe that the threat exists, but no longer believe that there’s anything there that can protect them from it,” he said. “Therefore, they are then obligated to take matters into their own hands.” 

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