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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

André Gagné, Ketra Schmitt, Jia Yuan Yu

Marc-Andre Argentino: How do extremist groups leverage technology to expand their reach and impact?

Marc-Andre Argentino's blog posts

Recent activity

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

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