“The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem” is a documentary about 4Chan, the popular imageboard website that became the Petri dish in which QAnon — the mother of all crackpot conspiracy theories — came into being. The story of 4Chan makes for a fascinating chapter in the evolution of Internet culture. But chances are we wouldn’t be seeing a documentary about it that drops today on Netflix if the 4Chan saga hadn’t culminated in the arrival of QAnon. Given the significance of QAnon, you’d think that when the movie arrived at its creation, it would feel like you were entering the last circle of the heart of darkness.
But no. Ironically, the genesis of QAnon is the lightest and most amusing part of “The Antisocial Network.” That’s not because QAnon itself has been anything less than disastrous in the wreckage it has caused this country. Of all the things...
But no. Ironically, the genesis of QAnon is the lightest and most amusing part of “The Antisocial Network.” That’s not because QAnon itself has been anything less than disastrous in the wreckage it has caused this country. Of all the things...
- 4/6/2024
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
In one of the most chilling sequences of “After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News” (there’s plenty of competition), we see dash-cam footage of Edgar Maddison Welch, the assault-rifle-toting “avenger” at the center of the Pizzagate insanity, as he drives from Salisbury, N.C., to Washington, D.C., to put an end to what he thought was a child sex-slave ring being run out of a popular restaurant. Bearded and resolved, with hipster rings on his fingers and a wool cap pulled down to his eyebrows, the 28-year-old Welch, staring at the highway ahead, looks and sounds like a meaner version of Bradley Cooper in “A Star Is Born.” Which made me think: Wouldn’t it be riveting to see an actor like Cooper play a wing-nut like Welch? Not to caricature him, but to understand him.
It’s often alleged, by those on the right, that...
It’s often alleged, by those on the right, that...
- 3/19/2020
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
If there’s a worse idea than the Pentagon becoming Editor-in-Chief of America, I can’t remember it. But we’re getting there:
From Bloomberg over Labor Day weekend:
Fake news and social media posts are such a threat to U.S. security that the Defense Department is launching a project to repel “large-scale, automated disinformation attacks,” as the top Republican in Congress blocks efforts to protect the integrity of elections.
One of the Pentagon’s most secretive agencies, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), is developing “custom software...
From Bloomberg over Labor Day weekend:
Fake news and social media posts are such a threat to U.S. security that the Defense Department is launching a project to repel “large-scale, automated disinformation attacks,” as the top Republican in Congress blocks efforts to protect the integrity of elections.
One of the Pentagon’s most secretive agencies, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), is developing “custom software...
- 9/5/2019
- by Matt Taibbi
- Rollingstone.com
Comet Ping Pong, the pizza parlor at the center of the 2016 election’s bizarre “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, can’t catch a break. An unidentified suspect broke into the restaurant on Wednesday and intentionally set fires, D.C. police said.
According to the Washington Post, arson investigators found burned matches on the floor below curtains in a backroom of the restaurant as well as an open bottle of lighter fluid on a table. The curtains caught fire but the flames were extinguished by staff before the fire spread further.
On Friday,...
According to the Washington Post, arson investigators found burned matches on the floor below curtains in a backroom of the restaurant as well as an open bottle of lighter fluid on a table. The curtains caught fire but the flames were extinguished by staff before the fire spread further.
On Friday,...
- 1/26/2019
- by Peter Wade
- Rollingstone.com
Washington — John Podesta has given it a lot of thought and believes the best way to deal with the trolls is to ignore them. His wife, Mary, however, takes a different approach. When angry people call their home in the middle of the night, she has a conversation with them.
“She sits on the phone and talks to them, which is disconcerting actually to most of the people who are calling just to leave a nasty message on your voicemail,” Podesta says. “When somebody actually engages them and says, ‘Why are you doing this?...
“She sits on the phone and talks to them, which is disconcerting actually to most of the people who are calling just to leave a nasty message on your voicemail,” Podesta says. “When somebody actually engages them and says, ‘Why are you doing this?...
- 12/9/2018
- by Andy Kroll
- Rollingstone.com
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