A baseless conspiracy became a global, user-franchised movement during COVID-19 and, despite waning visible participation after January 6, has left lasting narratives that contaminate information markets and complicate platform governance and AI data quality.

Derivative Fascisms and Conspiracy Play

· September 15, 2026 · The MIT Press eBooks

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QAnon, despite being implausible, franchised globally via online platforms during the COVID-19 era and—though visibly diminished after January 6—left persistent conspiratorial narratives that degrade information markets and threaten AI training-data quality and platform incentive structures.

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OpenAlex · Observed September 17, 2026

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Derivative Fascisms and Conspiracy PlayThe QAnon conspiracy fantasy, which originated in 2017 but burst onto the world stage during the global COVID-19 pandemic, is, on its face, highly implausible.It essentially posits that A-list celebrities (Celine Dion, Tom Hanks), liberal political elites (Hilary Clinton, Emmanuel Macron), and global businesspeople (Bill Gates, George Soros) are part of a world-spanning conspiracy dedicated to abducting children for the purposes of sexual abuse and to harvest their vital fluids for demonic purposes.Even more implausibly, it holds that the Trump administration (headed by a president who has been convicted of molestation, who was close friends with a notorious pedophile, and who is rarely acclaimed for his concern for the welfare of children) contained within it a secret taskforce dedicated to orchestrating a global war against these evildoers.A mysterious online figure identifying himself by the letter Q emerged in 2017 claiming to be a senior member of this taskforce and began sharing cryptic messages in the nether regions of the dark web, framed as coded clues to help Q and Trump's allies recognize and anticipate the moves in an eschatological chess match between good and evil (Rothschild 2022).As recently as 2022, nearly 20 percent of surveyed Americans believed the basic tenets of the conspiracy fantasy ( Huff 2022).Millions more around the world, from Israel to Japan to Nigeria to Brazil, also invested in the fantasy, incorporating familiar cultural, political, and economic elites into their own localized version of what appeared to be a kind of user-generated conspiracy franchising (Bloom and Maimon 2021; Jozuka et al. 2021; Muggah 2024).While participation in QAnon-affiliated groups and activities waned after the January 6, 2021, riots in Washington DC, where followers were a major and telegenic presence, one cannot say the movement (if it can be called that) failed: Indeed, its fundamental tenets of a coming apocalyptic war against an evil conspiracy have now in many ways and in many places become so

Summary

Main Finding

The excerpt argues that QAnon — though implausible in its claims — spread widely after its 2017 origin and became a global, user-franchised conspiracy phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite declines in visible participation after January 6, 2021, its core apocalyptic narrative and conspiratorial framings persisted and were incorporated into local contexts worldwide.

Key Points

Origin and content: QAnon began in 2017 with an anonymous figure (“Q”) posting cryptic messages framed as insider clues about a secret struggle between good and evil, alleging that elites abduct and abuse children and that a hidden taskforce (aligned with Trump) would combat them (Rothschild 2022).
Implausibility vs. uptake: The fantasy is highly implausible on its face but nonetheless attracted considerable belief—survey evidence cited shows nearly 20% of Americans endorsed its basic tenets as recently as 2022 (Huff 2022).
Globalization and franchising: The conspiracy was adapted across countries (Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Brazil, etc.), with local actors incorporated into a “user-generated conspiracy franchising” process (Bloom & Maimon 2021; Jozuka et al. 2021; Muggah 2024).
Role in real-world events: QAnon adherents were a prominent presence in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots; visible participation waned afterward, but the excerpt contends that the movement’s fundamental apocalyptic narrative has remained influential in many places.
Media and platforms: The movement’s emergence and spread were facilitated by online spaces, including the darker corners of the web and mainstream social platforms (implied by references to “cryptic messages” online).

Data & Methods

Cited sources in the excerpt include journalistic and academic reports and surveys: Rothschild (2022) on Q’s posts and claims; a 2022 HuffPost/YouGov-style statistic (Huff 2022) reporting ~20% belief among Americans; cross-national reporting/analyses (Bloom & Maimon 2021; Jozuka et al. 2021; Muggah 2024).
The excerpt itself does not detail original empirical methods. From the citations and claims, the underlying evidence likely draws on:
- Public-opinion survey data to measure belief prevalence.
- Content analysis of online postings and media coverage.
- Case studies and cross-national journalistic or scholarly accounts documenting local adaptations.
- Event analysis linking followers to January 6 activities.
Limitations: the provided text is a fragment and does not present full methodological detail or comprehensive empirical results.

Implications for AI Economics

Information-market externalities: Widespread conspiracies degrade the reliability of information markets, raising the economic value of trustworthy verification and increasing demand for fact-checking services and reputational signals. Economists should model misinformation as a negative externality that platforms and market actors internalize imperfectly.
Platform incentives and moderation economics: The dynamics that allowed QAnon to scale speak to how platform algorithms, engagement-maximizing incentives, and content moderation policies shape information diffusion. Research should evaluate the cost–benefit tradeoffs platforms face when moderating conspiratorial content and the competitive effects of different moderation regimes.
Data quality and AI training: Conspiratorial content contaminates unlabeled corpora used to train language and recommendation models, potentially biasing downstream economic systems (search, advertising, recommender monetization). There is an economic incentive to invest in cleaner training data, robust filtering, and adversarial defenses.
Demand for verification and marketplace for truth: Conspiracies create market opportunities for verification services, trusted intermediaries, and subscription-based news, altering consumer willingness-to-pay for credible signals. Mechanism design and pricing strategies are relevant research areas.
Political economy and regulation: Persistent conspiratorial movements affect trust in institutions, which has knock-on effects for adoption of AI-enabled public goods (e.g., health information systems) and for the political feasibility of regulatory interventions affecting AI markets.
Modeling and empirical research directions:
- Structural models of misinformation spread incorporating network effects, learning, and platform algorithm dynamics.
- Estimation of the social cost of conspiratorial misinformation (health, civic, economic outcomes).
- Field experiments and A/B tests on content-ranking algorithms, warning labels, and de-amplification to measure economic and informational impacts.
- Analysis of how localized “franchising” alters cross-border information spillovers and the global market for misinformation.
Policy implications: Economists and policymakers should quantify incentives for platforms to reduce harmful misinformation, design interventions (taxes/subsidies, liability rules, transparency requirements) to align private incentives with social welfare, and consider support for verification/public-interest media as public goods.

Note: this summary is based on an excerpt; the full paper or chapter may provide additional evidence, methods, and arguments not captured here.

Assessment

Paper Typedescriptive Evidence Strengthmedium — The excerpt synthesizes multiple secondary sources—surveys, journalistic and academic case studies, and content analyses—that consistently document QAnon's growth, globalization, and persistence; however, it contains no original causal identification or systematic empirical strategy and relies on heterogeneous evidence of varying quality and coverage. Methods Rigorlow — No original methods are presented in the excerpt; claims rest on heterogeneous secondary sources (surveys, content analyses, journalistic case studies) with likely differences in sampling and measurement and no clear attempt at causal identification or systematic cross-national inference. SampleSynthesis of secondary evidence: public-opinion survey data (e.g., HuffPost/YouGov-style estimates of ~20% endorsement in the U.S.), content analyses of Q posts and online forum activity, journalistic and academic cross-national case studies documenting local adaptations (Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Brazil, etc.), and event-level reporting linking adherents to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. Themesgovernance innovation GeneralizabilitySurvey evidence is likely U.S.-centric and may not reflect other national contexts., Online activity and visible participation can diverge from private beliefs (visibility/selection bias)., Cross-national 'franchising' is heterogenous; case studies may not be comparable or representative., Temporal dynamics: patterns after January 6 and through the pandemic may have changed since the cited sources., Journalistic sources vary in rigor; measurement error and inconsistent sampling likely across sources.

Claims (6)

Claim	Direction	Outcome	Confidence & Evidence	Details
QAnon began in 2017 with an anonymous figure known as “Q,” whose cryptic online messages described a secret struggle between good and evil and alleged that elites abducted and abused children. Adoption Rate	positive	Emergence and content of the QAnon conspiracy movement	Reading fidelity high Study strength medium	not reported 0.18
Despite the implausibility of its claims, QAnon attracted substantial belief in the United States, with nearly 20% of Americans endorsing its basic tenets in 2022. Adoption Rate	positive	Share of Americans endorsing core QAnon beliefs	Reading fidelity high Study strength medium	nearly 20% 0.18
QAnon became a global conspiracy phenomenon by being adapted to local contexts in countries including Israel, Japan, Nigeria, and Brazil. Adoption Rate	positive	Cross-national diffusion and localization of QAnon narratives	Reading fidelity high Study strength medium	not reported 0.18
The international spread of QAnon involved a user-generated conspiracy-franchising process in which local actors incorporated the narrative into their own national contexts. Adoption Rate	positive	Local adaptation and replication of a conspiracy movement	Reading fidelity high Study strength medium	not reported 0.18
QAnon adherents were a prominent presence during the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Governance And Regulation	positive	Participation of QAnon adherents in a major political event	Reading fidelity high Study strength low	not reported 0.09
Visible participation in QAnon declined after January 6, 2021, but the movement’s core apocalyptic narrative and conspiratorial framing persisted and continued to influence local contexts worldwide. Adoption Rate	mixed	Post-January 6 visible participation and persistence of QAnon narratives	Reading fidelity medium Study strength low	not reported 0.05