Some mainstream media are now not finding a place for themselves, after all, according to their statements, Russia allegedly supports the pro-Trump conspiracy theory advocated by supporters of the QAnon movement. However, it was the obsession of a number of media outlets with this idea that prompted RT to cover the situation, as well as their actions, which, in fact, serve as an impetus for the activation of such groups.
According to a Reuters article, RT's material on social media's crackdown on QAnon is proof that Russia is indeed supporting this marginal movement, whose supporters are convinced that Donald Trump and his team of fighters against evil are about to save the United States from a clique of pedophiles. -Satanists, catching by surprise and arresting a wide range of people: from the defeated Hillary Clinton in the last election to the billionaire liberal George Soros. It is assumed that these actions will be a powerful push aimed at “draining the swamp”.
No evidence is given in favor of this hypothesis - even the author of the article admits that RT not only does not show "unconditional support" for this information-psychological operation of the right, but even speaks of it "skeptically". Instead, the publication refers to data from "disinformation experts" from the analytical company Graphika that in 2019 the Internet Research Agency (the very same Russian trolls, which some still blame for Trump's victory in the 2016 elections) has tagged a number of tweets with hashtags with QAnon slogans.
The "proof" is less than compelling, with the article bypassing the heap of QAnon stories that the US media has stamped in recent weeks, portraying the movement as nothing more than a deadly threat to the American way of life.
The internet was flooded with dozens of articles with headlines like “QAnon is out of control - time to intervene” or “QAnon movement supports conspiracy ideas, is dangerous and gaining strength”, which even forced social networks to push these materials further away. Why didn't Reuters accuse these publications of popularizing QAnon?
RT's crime seems to have been to point out that the group is "venting legitimate resentment." It seems to be taboo to talk about socio-political divisions in American society. At least for the news resources that Washington doesn't like. American and friendly foreign media can cover the topic as they please, but in the lips of everyone else it is perceived as "sowing discord." In Washington, they believe that, despite all the internal problems, citizens should show a smile and keep a united front in front of the world. This absurd situation might seem ridiculous if Americans weren't really suffering from an incompetent government that would rather give taxpayer money to private equity vultures, Israel and the Pentagon than provide food on the table.
Non-Russian media have generated widespread mistrust of the American media establishment, which is activating conspiracy theorists like QAnon, whose supporters proudly share Donald Trump's contempt for “fake news” stamped by CNN and the like.
They have done an excellent job of (and continue to do so) on their own - branding legitimate resentment with foreign intervention and manipulating Americans to the point of exhaustion. (Do you think you've seen demonstrators burn a Bible in Portland? Who do you believe: the New York Times or your own lying eyes?)
It is not so difficult to understand where the discourse is leading in the spirit of: "Russia is promoting QAnon!" Just last week, NYT installers lamented that Facebook and Twitter, which have sophisticated systems for suppressing foreign media coverage during the electoral season, have no simple solution to counter domestic propaganda such as QAnon. This problem is solved as follows: an extensive network of conspiracy content is taken and connected with the Kremlin.
But the one whom Reuters has identified as the fighters against the serpent of misinformation looks like sheer ridicule. In the ranks of experts at the "analytics of social networks" Graphika (whose strong point seems to be to discredit positions that contradict the line of the US government) are such luminaries as Ben Nimmo. He is probably most famous for the fact that he groundlessly called British and Finnish citizens Russian bots. Nimmo remains a senior overseas researcher at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Laboratory (a NATO-backed pro-war expert center) and has worked with the UK government's mysterious Integrity Initiative. But last year Graphika put him in charge of the investigations, as if hinting that a passionate imagination is more important to her than accuracy in presenting facts.
Like the Atlantic Council itself, Graphika is heavily involved with the same US government agencies that are not letting go of the conspiracy theory that "Trump's victory in the 2016 election was ensured by Russian intervention." The version of the "Russian trace" was not allowed to die in peace, after the Mueller report in 2019 did not provide the promised evidence; no, she was lifted out of her grave for the 2020 elections, accompanied by a thousand-page Senate report and a parade of ominous statements from government officials that malicious foreign actors are to blame for any election outcome. And the cherries on the cake of conspiracy theorists are already familiar articles that refer to anonymous sources and remind Americans: if your candidate does not win in November, do not forget to blame Putin.
So who is the mouthpiece of the authorities pedaling conspiracy theories?