The World of Far-Right Social Media Thinks Everyone is a Clone
Inside the rationalization that keeps the QAnon conspiracy ticking.
After the January 6th insurrection, Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the major social media platforms started to ban groups that promoted conspiracy theories. These recently booted alt-righters flocked to alternative sites such as Telegram and MeWe, where they continued more or less the same as they did before, claiming that a vast government conspiracy had taken over America.
On these fringes of the Internet, it’s common to see far-right conspiracy theorists allege ideas that border on the truly bizarre. Many are still convinced that Trump never lost the election. Entire groups are devoted to conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which supposes that an elite cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles controls the world. Some believe that liberals are extracting an imaginary substance called adrenochrome from children to keep themselves young.
Stranger still, many believe that politicians such as Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton are actually clones or elaborate deepfakes. These theorists exist in an alternate reality where nothing we see on the news is actually true — clues of which can be “discovered” in between the frames of government videos and decoded in the words of public statements.
