Public scholars
Marc-André Argentino
I focus on the nexus of technology and extremist groups, using a combination of data science and digital ethnography to research how these groups leverage and manipulate platforms and algorithms to their advantage.
Marc-André Argentino is a PhD candidate in the Individualized Program (INDI). His research examines how extremist groups leverage technology to create propaganda, recruit members to ideological causes, inspire acts of violence and impact democratic institutions. He has an MA from Université Laval and a BA from Concordia. Marc-André is an associate fellow at the Global Network on Extremism & Technology and an associate researcher at the Centre d'Expertise et de Formation sur les Intégrismes Religieux, les idéologies politiques et la radicalisation et la Radicalisation.
Discipline
Individualized Program: (Theological Studies, Engineering, Computer Science)
Languages
English, French
Supervisors
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Marc-Andre Argentino: How do extremist groups leverage technology to expand their reach and impact?
Marc-Andre Argentino's blog posts
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The election is over but the information wars are just heating up. Public Scholar Marc-Andre Argentino explains the ongoing and elusive threat posed by online conspiracy theories. Read more
Recent activity
April 8 - The Conversation: QAnon conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic are a public health threat
April 8 - GNET (The Global Network on Extremism and Technology): The COVID Conspiracy Files
April 22 - 4th SPACE panel: Spreading Conspiracy: Defiant Churches in the Time of Covid-19
April 10 - The Conversation: Les prêcheurs au temps de la Covid-19 : Complots, combat spirituel et remèdes miracles
May 5 - Podcast (USA): Straight White American Jesus: QAnon, Evangelicals, and COVID-19
May 18 - The Conversation: The Church of QAnon: Will conspiracy theories form the basis of a new religious movement?
May 21 - Podcast: The Quirky (Australia): QAnon: The Dark Corner Of The Web Where Conspiracies Are Born
May 27 - Interview with La Repubblica (Italy): Perché Bill Gates diventa il bersaglio preferito di tutti i complotti
May 28 - Religion Dispatches "In the Name of the Father, Son, and Q: Why It’s Important to See QAnon as a ‘Hyper-Real’ Religion"
QAnon Anonymous Podcast Episode 93: The Church of QAnon featuring Marc-André Argentino
June 5 - Podcast: The Muckrake Political Podcast (USA): Yates Sexton The Fascists Are Scared... And They Should Be.
June 5 - nterview: Failed State Update (USA): QAnon, Boogaloo Bois, and the current wave of protests
June 8 - Publication in GNET (The Global Network on Extremism and Technology): Digital Platforms and Extremism 2: Electric Boogaloo
June 9 - Interview with Buzzfeed How The Antifa Fantasy Spread In Small Towns Across The US
June 12 - Interview with Huffington Post The Violent Extremist Threat That's Growing During Nationwide Protests
June 25 - Publication in .Coda: The boogaloo movement is trying to use Black Lives Matter to push its own agenda
July 3 - Interview in VICE: The man who allegedly stormed Justin Trudeau’s residence appears to have posted QAnon content
July 8 - Publication in The Conversation: QAnon conspiracy theory followers step out of the shadows and may be headed to congress
July 13 - Interview with Insider: How the Wayfair human-traffiking conspiracy grew out of QAnon
July 16 - Interview with The Daily Beast: GOPers are trying to recruit QAnon Voters and Using This YouTube show to do it
July 22 - Interview with Rolling Stone: Twitter Just Banned QAnon Accounts. QAnon Supporters Are Thrilled
July 22 - Publication in The Observer: How will QAnon fight back against the Twitter ban and what happens next
July 23 - Interview with euronews: What is QAnon and should Europe be worried?
July 27 - MediaMatters: Here are the QAnon supports running for state legislatures in 2020
July 28 - Interview with Canadaland (podcast): QAnon Comes to Canada
July 28 - Interview with The Big Story (podcast): How did QAnon evolve? And can believers ever be convinced otherwise?
July 28 - Cited in The Insider: QAnon is leaking into the mainstream, moving from internet fringes to primetime cable news as Americans keep falling for the unfounded conspiracy theory
July 29 - Featured in VICE: QAnon Has Gone Global
July 30 - Interview with La Reppublica: QAnon, il cospirazionismo americano sta mettendo radici in Italia
July 30 - Interview with 680 Toronto radio: QAnon has expanded during the pandemic
July 30 - Interview with BBC: QAnon – Should we be concerned (at 46m)
July 2020 - Piece in CTC Sentinel Vol. 12 issue 7: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making
August 1 - Radio Interview with Consider This (UK): International conspiracy ideas finding their way into Northumberland
August 1 - Interview with La Libre (Belgium): QAnon, comment un “culte” conspirationniste pro-Trump est né sur Internet
August 4 - Vice: Terrorism Experts Say QAnon Conspiracy Theory a Threat to National Security
August 7 - Daily Dot: Facebook bans QAnon group with nearly 200,000 members
August 8 - Gizmodo: What is QAnon and Why Did Facebook Ban One of Its Largest Groups?
August 8 - Bloomberg.com: QAnon is Running Amok, and the Time has Come for Interventions
August 17 - Featured in Intrepid (podcast): A Q&A on QAnon
August 17 - LAMag: Inside QAnon, the Conspiracy Cult that’s Devouring America
August 18 - Rzeczpsopolita: QAnon. Od Pizzagate do sympatii Trumpa
August 18 - Berlingske: QAnon venter på Trumps tusindårsrige – og de er klar til at kæmpe for det
August 19 - Quoted in the Daily Beast: What Happens When Ex-Navy SEALS Go Full QAnon?
August 19 - Quoted in The Telegraph UK: Why conspiracy theories are gaining ground in the pandemic
August 19 - The Telegraph (UK):Why conspiracy theories are gaining ground in the pandemic
August 19 - The New York Times: Facebook Removes 790 QAnon Groups to Fight Conspiracy Theory
August 20 - Le Parisien: Complotiste, pro-Trump et prête à prendre les armes… faut-il avoir peur de la mouvance QAnon
August 20 - GQ (AU): What Is QAnon And Why Is There A Growing Australian Following
August 20 - ABC news: What is QAnon and how did we get here?
August 20 - The Guardian (US): Facebook’s latest purge of QAnon conspiracy theory pages unlikely to affect growing Australian following
August 20 - MotherJones: The Summer QAnon Went Mainstream
August 21 - VOA news: Kako se Qanon teorija zavjere proširila na svijet?
August 22 - Radio-Canada: Comprendre le mouvement QAnon pour mieux en parler à ses proches
August 23 - ABC news (AUS): How the QAnon conspiracy theory is tearing family and friends apart in Australia
August 26 - VOA: The Global QAnon Conspiracy Theory
August 26 - Franceinfo: Présidentielle américaine : comment les complotistes du mouvement QAnon sont devenus les meilleurs alliés de Donald Trump
August 26 - Aftenposten: De tror USA styres av pedofile djevledyrkere: – Jeg har hørt at disse folkene elsker landet vårt, sier Trump
August 28 - Vice (Espanol): QAnon, la teoría conspiratoria que gana adeptos en todo el mundo
August 30 - Frankfurter Allgemeine Der Siegeszug einer Verschwörungstheorie
August 31 - Gizmodi: QAnon Australia: Explaining The Absurd And Dangerous Conspiracy Theory Down Under
September 1 - Impolite Conversation (podcast): #62: The Politics and Religion of QAnon
September 3 - The Sydney Morning Herald: 'Stop the cabal': What is the conspiracy movement QAnon?
September 3 - ABC News: QAnon, once a fringe conspiracy theory, edges into the mainstream: 'Things could get much, much worse'
September 15 - Rolling Stone: Wellness Influencers Are Calling Out QAnon Conspiracy Theorists for Spreading Lies
September 18 - Slate: It Makes Perfect Sense That QAnon Took Off With Women This Summer
September 18 - Internazionale: Il mondo di QAnon: come entrarci, perché uscirne. Seconda parte
September 19 - The New York Times: Facebook Tried to Limit QAnon. It Failed
September 21 - Byline Times: How Can Liberal Democracy Respond to the Rise of QAnon
September 22 - WIRED: QAnon Is Like a Game—a Most Dangerous Game
September 24 - Global Network on Extremism & Technology (GNET): Increased Visibility of Far-Right Movements in Australia During the COVID-19 Pandemic
September 27 - Brisbane Times: 'Playing with fire': The curious marriage of QAnon and wellness
September 27 - The New York Times: How ‘Save the Children’ Is Keeping QAnon Alive
September 28 - Business Insider: How QAnon is hooking Americans with its ‘save the children’ anti-pedophilia rhetoric
September 30 - The Feed: 'Pastel QAnon': The female lifestyle bloggers and influencers spreading conspiracy theories through Instagram
September 30 - VICE: QAnon Is Going into Stealth Mode Ahead of the Election
October 2 - Bipartisan bill presented in the US House of Representatives: H.Res.1154 - Condemning QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy theories it promotes
October 6 - ABC News: Facebook to remove all accounts 'representing' QAnon
October 7 - Business Insider: YouTube is one of the last big platforms openly hosting QAnon content after its users were kicked off Facebook and Instagram
October 7 - The Daily Telegraph: The daily telegraph also quoted some of my recent content
October 7 - Daily KOS: Facebook gets serious in cracking down on QAnon, but it may be too late to make a difference
October 7 - CNN Business: How a dangerous virtual cult is going global.
October 8 - Radio Canada International: Un populaire Québécois promoteur des idées de QAnon censuré par Facebook
October 9 - La Presse: QAnon sème ses thèses complotistes sur les réseaux sociaux
October 9 - France24: QAnon sows panic with child trafficking misinformation
October 12 - La Libre: Quand on y entre, cela peut être difficile d’en sortir": comment la mouvance QAnon, qui voit en Trump un justicier, a fait son nid en France suscitant une levée de boucliers
October 12 - BBC News: What's behind the rise of QAnon in the UK?
October 14 - QAnonymous podcast: Episode 113: The Second QAnon Purge: Mutation feat Marc-André Argentino
October 14 - Insider: Pinterest is the latest social platform to announce a stance against the QAnon conspiracy theory
October 14 - Le Monde: Mouvance QAnon : les réseaux sociaux modèrent à tâtons
October 15 - The Conversation: Facebook ban of QAnon is only a first step in the battle against dangerous conspiracy theories
October 15 - Radio Canada: Qonspirations : comment un mégacomplot s’enracine au Québec
October 21 - VICE: The Anti-Mask Revolution Was Organized on Facebook
October 21 - Yahoo! Sports: 'Pastel QAnon,' where pro-Trump conspiracy theories meet New Age spirituality
October 22 - HuffPost (UK):The UK Is Now The Second Biggest Hub For QAnon Internet Activity In The World
October 22 - Radio Canada’s Enquete: LINK TBD
October 23 - Yahoo! Sport: Why is QAnon more obsessed with an imaginary sex-trafficking ring than with Jeffrey Epstein’s real one
October 25 - CBC News: How conspiracies like QAnon are slowly creeping into some Canadian churches
October 25 - Radio-Canada: Quand les théories du complot s’infiltrent dans les églises
October 28 - Religion Dispatches: QAnon’s Predictions Haven’t Come True: So How Does the Movement Survive the Failure of Prophecy?
October 28 - The Atlantic: Why the grandiose promises of multilevel marketing and QAnon conspiracy theories go hand in hand
October 28 - Vox: The Instagram aesthetic that made QAnon mainstream
October 29 - the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT): Q-Pilled: Conspiracy Theories, Trump, and Election Violence in the United States
October 29 - ELLE: The Real Housewives of QAnon How conspiracy theorists co-opted #SavetheChildren to lure suburban moms into Q's labyrinth
October 31 - Business Insider: Facebook says it will limit the use of the 'Save our Children' hashtag, but not 'Save the Children,' after QAnon co-opted the anti-trafficking movement
November 1 - VICE News: How QAnon Went Global
November 3 - CTV News Montreal: How Canada became one of the world's biggest hubs for Qanon conspiracy theories
November 3 - Faktisk: Bakgrunn: Dette er QAnon i Norge
November 9 - ANTIHATE: "Pastel Anon" Came For Us After We Wrote About The Q Movement In Canada
November 10 - with Amarnath Amarasingam at Queen’s University: Is QAnon a New Religious Movement? Talk by Marc-Andre Argentino
November 11 - The Feed: 'Trust the plan’: qanon followers react to trump’s defeat
November 11 - Advearul Moldava: Conspiraţia QAnon. Ce fac „soldaţii” lui Q după înfrângerea lui Trump
November 11 - INSIDER: How QAnon infiltrated the yoga world
November 12 - VICE: Parler, Gab, MeWe, and Rumble Are Creating a Massive Right-Wing Echo Chamber
November 12 - Yahoo! News: Life after QAnon: Trump's loss allows some to escape conspiracy cult's grip
November 13 - The Washington Examiner: Facebook throttles QAnon favorite #SaveTheChildren hashtag
November 18 - Rolling Stone: Why Sexual-Abuse Survivors Are Getting Sucked Into QAnon
November 19 - VICE news: PSA: Twitter Doesn’t Automatically Delete Your Fleets After 24 Hours
November 20 - Slate: Twitter Has Set Itself Up for an Enormous New Content Moderation Problem
November 21 - StarTribune: Reality-checking Giuliani’s claims that meals vans hauled fraudulent Biden ballots in Detroit
November 22 - Star Tribune: Trump claims of lifeless voters proceed to crumble
November 22 - Rolling Stone (Italy): Le vittime di abusi sessuali che si avvicinano a QAnon
November 25 - Mother Jones: How Twitter’s Disappearing Fleets Could Be a Disinformation Disaster
December 3 - CNN Business: Disappearing 'Fleets' bring new misinformation challenges for Twitter
December 3 - Patria Indipendente: QAnon, l’onda in ItaliaGruppo di lavoro Patria su neofascismo e web
December 4 - The Walrus: When QAnon Came to Canada
December 11 - DerStandard: Wie Instagram-Mütter mit Verschwörungstheorien geködert werden
December 16 - IDNES.cz/Zoravidajstvi: Konspirátoři z QAnonu vyzráli na sociální sítě. Vydávají se za ochránce dětíZdroj
December 18 - Daily Kos: QAnon’s cherished myths pummeled by reality, but the conspiracist cult just keeps spreading
December 22 - .coda: The year QAnon went global
December 23 - Religion Dispatches: 11 Top RD Stories of the Year
December 23 - ABC Radio International: As churches prove 'fertile ground' for conspiracy theories, some pastors are taking a stand
December 28 - Reddit: Ask Me Anything:
December 30 - note (Reddit AMA in Japanese): Marc-André Argentino氏のQAnon Q&A コンコルディア大
December 31 - QAnonAnonymous (podcast): Episode 123:International QAnon (The Netherlands) feat Marc-André Argentino
December 31 - Media Matters: In 2020, QAnon became all of our problem
January 1 - World of Weird Things (podcast): Further down the rabbit hole with Marc-Andre Argentino
January 4 - Logically: QAnon spreads conspiracy theories
January 6 - The New York Times: The Pro-Trump Movement Was Always Headed Here
January 7 - Cyber (podcast): QAnon and the Storming of Capitol Hill
January 7 - Społeczeństwo: QAnon. Od Pizzagate do sympatii Trumpa
January 7 - The Conversation:
- EN: QAnon and the storm of the U.S. Capitol: The offline effect of online conspiracy theories
- FR: QAnon et l’assaut du Capitole : l’effet réel des théories du complot en ligne
January 8 - VICE: How QAnon Fuelled the Invasion of Capitol Hill
January 8 - Business Insider: The bizarre origins of the lizard-people conspiracy theory embraced by the Nashville bomber, and how it's related to QAnon
January 9 - The Guardian: 'She was deep into it': Ashli Babbitt, killed in Capitol riot, was devoted conspiracy theorist
January 11 - Business AM Newsweek: Celui qui s’étonne de ce qui s’est passé au Capitole n’a pas prêté attention aux dernières années
January 11 - 9 News Australia: Explainer: What is QAnon? How a wild conspiracy theory led to the storming of the US Capitol