{"id":15800,"date":"2022-06-13T15:52:33","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T19:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=15800"},"modified":"2022-06-24T10:30:30","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T14:30:30","slug":"down-the-rabbit-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/down-the-rabbit-hole\/","title":{"rendered":"Down the Rabbit Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2020, Sara Aniano started her master\u2019s in communication studies at Monmouth just as the COVID-19 pandemic was about to disrupt everything. Amidst the uncertainty, Aniano found herself with a lot of time to contemplate what she wanted to do when she finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one day a friend told her a story about celebrities drinking the blood of children\u2014a favorite topic of the QAnon conspiracy communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI fell into the same rabbit hole a lot of people fell into during that time,\u201d says Aniano. \u201cBut instead of believing it, I found it to be this really fascinating communication event that could pose really big problems for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aniano, who worked in marketing for nine years before beginning her master\u2019s degree work, was already familiar with effective social media strategies\u2014core parts of online conspiracy theories\u2014so she decided to make the machinations of QAnon the focus of her master\u2019s studies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy thesis is on QAnon Instagram comments leading up to the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, 2021,\u201d says Aniano. \u201cI\u2019m studying the online rhetoric of far right groups to see what kind of warning signs we can identify while highlighting the accountability required of both big tech and mainstream media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her thesis, \u201cConspiratorial Communities: A Rhetorical Analysis of QAnon Instagram Comments Before the Capitol Riots,\u201d Aniano presents evidence for how conspiracy theories about election fraud were successfully spread on public Instagram accounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s worrisome because they\u2019re readily accessible to everybody,\u201d says Aniano. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be particularly tech savvy to read some misinformation on Instagram and find it believable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally worrisome for Aniano is being a researcher who presents her real identity online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, when Aniano wasn\u2019t as experienced as she is now, she shared the username of a conspiracy theorist on Instagram who was posting from her public account. That person found out and shared all of Aniano\u2019s content from Twitter, including her picture and real name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCommenters quickly branded me a satanic pedophile-supporting communist and said that I only got hired because I have Jewish on my r\u00e9sum\u00e9,\u201d says Aniano. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not Jewish, by the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aniano has a thick skin, so the epithets didn\u2019t bother her; the worst part was her lack of control over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did everything we could to report this account, but it never got taken down,\u201d says Aniano. \u201cThe fact that Instagram was unwilling to help me, when I had so much evidence of their inability to take down misinformation before Jan. 6, made me feel unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the risks, Aniano has steadily published her research both on Twitter and for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology, which is funded by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King\u2019s College London. In the process, she has become a go-to source for major media outlets reporting on the topic, including NBC News, The Washington Post<\/em>, and The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aniano intends to continue the work on the rabbit hole she fell into when the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mission is to prevent misinformation in the future,\u201d says Aniano. \u201cThat\u2019s a lofty goal, but I\u2019d rather try than not try.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graduate student Sara Aniano researches the far-right rhetoric of conspiracy theories despite the challenges and risks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":15803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currents"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Currents","issue":"Spring\/Summer 2022","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15998,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15800\/revisions\/15998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}