# Facebook shuts down thousands of QAnon pages



## Eric

Since Trump basically gave them his endorsement social media is cracking down. This group is not just a Republican faction, they're an actual terrorist organization and because they like Trump, he refuses to stand up to them so they now have a place on the world stage, just like he did with white supremacists.

From CNN:


> Washington (CNN Business)Facebook (FB) on Wednesday cracked down on thousands of accounts across Facebook and Instagram promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory, as well as a range of militia and anarchist groups, amid what the company said was a rise in behavior among those accounts and groups celebrating violence. Hundreds of groups, pages and advertisements were removed from Facebook as part of the effort, the company said.
> 
> As many as 10,000 Instagram accounts and hundreds of groups and pages on Facebook tied to QAnon received additional restrictions, Facebook said.


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## Huntn

Thank Goodness!


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## Renzatic




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## jkcerda

but but but Muh free speech...........................................
you know to a degree this just fuels the conspiracy nuts right?


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## Renzatic

jkcerda said:


> you know to a degree this just fuels the conspiracy nuts right?




You're kinda damned if you do, damned if you don't with that bunch.


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## lizkat

jkcerda said:


> but but but Muh free speech...........................................
> you know to a degree this just fuels the conspiracy nuts right?





Nah, they're self-propelled somehow.  A mysteriously innate desire to run in a hamster wheel while claiming freedom of expression and special powers of analysis and innovation.


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## Eric

jkcerda said:


> but but but Muh free speech...........................................
> you know to a degree this just fuels the conspiracy nuts right?



You think?









						‘QAnon’ book claiming Democrats eat children is climbing the Amazon charts
					

“QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening,” a book pushing wacky conspiracy theories, has become an Amazon best-seller, cracking the top 75 of books sold...




					www.marketwatch.com


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## Renzatic

> The book, which says it was written by a dozen “anonymous Q followers, decoders and citizen journalists known collectively as Where We Go One We Go All (WWG1WGA),” claims that Democrats murder and eat children...




Pfft.



> ...and that the government created AIDS, polio and Lyme disease.




Pshaw.



> Then there’s the belief that the world is run by a Satanic cabal led by Hillary Clinton.




...well, maybe.


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## jkcerda

Eric said:


> You think?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ‘QAnon’ book claiming Democrats eat children is climbing the Amazon charts
> 
> 
> “QAnon: An Invitation to the Great Awakening,” a book pushing wacky conspiracy theories, has become an Amazon best-seller, cracking the top 75 of books sold...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.marketwatch.com



it's a book, it's aimed at people who can READ so it really poses no threat, wake me up when they release an audio book


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## lizkat

A lot of us just don't have enough to do, ya think?    We need to figure out what to do with ourselves  now that hardly anyone's down on the farm doing chores from dawn 'til dusk, hoping to scrounge up a decent supper before crashing into bed and a dreamless sleep before rising to do it all over again.   Way too much time now left for mischief and malice...


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## Huntn

Kudos to Facebook. When free speech allows blatant lies in social media, where do you go from there? Down the toilet that’s where.


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## lizkat

Huntn said:


> Kudos to Facebook. When free speech allows blatant lies in social media, where do you go from there? Down the toilet that’s where.




They took their sweet time reaching for the flush handle.


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## Renzatic

Huntn said:


> Kudos to Facebook. When free speech allows blatant lies in social media, where do you go from there? Down the toilet that’s where.




It's not a free speech issue because social media isn't run by the government. It's as simple as that.

You're free to say what you want to say without fear of the Powers That Be punishing you, but at no point is anyone obligated to provide you a soapbox to shout from. If Facebook doesn't like what you're saying, then hey, it's their service. They own the software that runs their platform, host the servers that keep it running, and pay for the bandwidth they use. They can define the rules as they see fit.

If you want a true free speech platform where anyone can say anything they want, barring outright slander and death threats, then petition the government to host one themselves, and pay for it with your tax dollars. It'll be a cesspit of stupidity, but it'll be free.



lizkat said:


> They took their sweet time reaching for the flush handle.




Yeah, well, I'm sure they had to determine whether such a move would cost them any money before they'd commit to it.

At the end of the day, when these social media platforms censor someone, it's not about ideology, it's about whether something will scare their advertisers or not.


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## yaxomoxay

Eric said:


> Since Trump basically gave them his endorsement social media is cracking down. This group is not just a Republican faction, they're an actual terrorist organization and because they like Trump, he refuses to stand up to them so they now have a place on the world stage, just like he did with white supremacists.
> 
> From CNN:




Looks like FB also cut many Antifa pages. It's becoming more and more difficult for social media companies to not be considered editors...

Why are you saying that they are a terrorist organization? Serious question. I know about some of their crazy theories (I mean, baked children rolled in bacon is a hearty meal), but I haven't seen any true call for violence, or any true organized violence at this point.


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## yaxomoxay

Renzatic said:


> At the end of the day, when these social media platforms censor someone, it's not about ideology, it's about whether something will scare their advertisers or not.




I wish we could censor social media companies. They ruined the world, and I don't think it's hyperbole.


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## Renzatic

yaxomoxay said:


> I wish we could censor social media companies. They ruined the world, and I don't think it's hyperbole.




I dunno if I'd say they _ruined_ the world exactly, but they sure as hell haven't been a positive influence on society at large.


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## Eric

yaxomoxay said:


> Looks like FB also cut many Antifa pages. It's becoming more and more difficult for social media companies to not be considered editors...
> 
> Why are you saying that they are a terrorist organization? Serious question. I know about some of their crazy theories (I mean, baked children rolled in bacon is a hearty meal), but I haven't seen any true call for violence, or any true organized violence at this point.



But this is about QAnon, not Antifa although I get the need for what about-isms, I guess. (got stick it to the Libs in an unrelated topic)

The FBI has labeled them as domestic terrorists








						FBI Labels Fringe Conspiracy Theories as Domestic Terrorism Threat
					

In a previously unpublished report, the FBI says theories like QAnon and Pizzagate could pose a new domestic terrorism threat.



					www.thedailybeast.com
				






> A previously unpublished FBI bulletin from May 30 says that for the first time the agency is labelling “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” as a growing threat. The report points to fringe conspiracy theories as being potentially harmful and having the potential to expand in the 2020 election cycle. “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document says. In the report, the FBI specifically cites multiple cases of conspiracy-driven violence, including a California man found in possession of a bomb who referenced Pizzagate and the New World Order, as well as the Pittsburgh shooter who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue and had posted anti-Semitic content on social media.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Great first step.  Now I hope Facebook shutting down Facebook is the second.  If you can’t live without Facebook kill yourself.  (In before the shipment of mod hammers arrives!)


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## yaxomoxay

Eric said:


> But this is about QAnon, not Antifa although I get the need for what about-isms, I guess. (got stick it to the Libs in an unrelated topic)




??? What?


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## Renzatic

Eric said:


> But this is about QAnon, not Antifa although I get the need for what about-isms, I guess. (got stick it to the Libs in an unrelated topic)
> 
> The FBI has labeled them as domestic terrorists




In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to deal with either one of them.

Though in a lot of ways, I consider QAnon a considerably more dangerous threat than Antifa for the simple fact that it's organized. They meet on the internet, they get together in person, they discuss their ideology, they make plans, and they act upon them. They haven't done anything too extreme yet, but they're a ticking timebomb of crazy just waiting to explode.

And what does Antifa do? It's a bunch of college kids smoking bowls in their dorms, saying stuff like "hey, I like that whole BLM thing, you know? Let's go set some cop cars on fire to show our support." It's not an organized movement. It lacks centralized leadership, making it incapable of pulling off anything on a widespread scale. It's just random people doing random property damage, then going home.


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## Eric

yaxomoxay said:


> ??? What?



You took a thread about QAnon, a story in the news today, and equated it with Antifa, surely you see that.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Eric said:


> The FBI has labeled them as domestic terrorists
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> FBI Labels Fringe Conspiracy Theories as Domestic Terrorism Threat
> 
> 
> In a previously unpublished report, the FBI says theories like QAnon and Pizzagate could pose a new domestic terrorism threat.
> 
> 
> 
> www.thedailybeast.com




I believe they are capable of violence, but I also believe they can be easily dispersed by a Slender Man warning siren.


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## yaxomoxay

Eric said:


> You took a thread about QAnon, a story in the news today, and equated it with Antifa, surely you see that.




no, I was saying that FB also took off Antifa pages today, in the same “operation”









						Facebook steps up action against fringe groups like QAnon, Antifa
					

Facebook said Wednesday it has already removed thousands of groups, accounts and ads tied to these groups.




					www.politico.com


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## Huntn

Renzatic said:


> It's not a free speech issue because social media isn't run by the government. It's as simple as that.
> 
> You're free to say what you want to say without fear of the Powers That Be punishing you, but at no point is anyone obligated to provide you a soapbox to shout from. If Facebook doesn't like what you're saying, then hey, it's their service. They own the software that runs their platform, host the servers that keep it running, and pay for the bandwidth they use. They can define the rules as they see fit.
> 
> If you want a true free speech platform where anyone can say anything they want, barring outright slander and death threats, then petition the government to host one themselves, and pay for it with your tax dollars. It'll be a cesspit of stupidity, but it'll be free.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, well, I'm sure they had to determine whether such a move would cost them any money before they'd commit to it.
> 
> At the end of the day, when these social media platforms censor someone, it's not about ideology, it's about whether something will scare their advertisers or not.



I’m sure they will say their free crazy ass speech Is being cut off. And there  is awareness now about foreign players f’n with us.

I’ll be honest with you guys, I did not even know there was a QAnon a week ago.   Social media can become a mionster, when a group of people get vested in conspiracy theories, which become their defacto  facts. Anyone think that is dangerous? Is truth a bad standard to uphold? Yes, I realize censorship is a slippery slope.


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## BigMcGuire

Huntn said:


> I’m sure they will say their free crazy ass speech Is being cut off. And there  is awareness now about foreign players f’n with us.
> 
> I’ll be honest with you guys, I did not even know there was a QAnon a week ago.   Social media can become a mionster, when a group of people get vested in conspiracy theories, which become their defacto  facts. Anyone think that is dangerous? Is truth a bad standard to uphold? Yes, I realize censorship is a slippery slope.




Youre not the only one. I didn’t know either. I don’t have Facebook so... lol. Had no clue what Qanon was before last week.


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## Eric

BigMcGuire said:


> Youre not the only one. I didn’t know either. I don’t have Facebook so... lol. Had no clue what Qanon was before last week.



Same here, I have an account for managing my page but I don't use it for anything else.


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## Renzatic

BigMcGuire said:


> Youre not the only one. I didn’t know either. I don’t have Facebook so... lol. Had no clue what Qanon was before last week.




Considering yourself lucky. I've ran into a few the QAnon faithful, and, yeah, they're a pretty culty group of folks.


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## BigMcGuire

Renzatic said:


> Considering yourself lucky. I've ran into a few the QAnon faithful, and, yeah, they're a pretty culty group of folks.




The question I ask is this - why are these groups/people coming out NOW? Why wait until now? Maybe they were always there but just didn't get enough attention... always confuses me the timing of these things.

Trump loves to troll the media and I figure stuff like this is always a side goal for him. Take something they despise, make it popular, watch them writhe in frustration and outrage. Horrible thing to do but very Trump like behavior.

I hate conspiracy theorists. I hate that mingled in with Trump 2020 supporters are the "Bill Gates caused Covid19!" and what not. I don't even want to try to know what QAnon is - I'm just glad my "inner circle" of conservative friends have never mentioned it.


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## yaxomoxay

BigMcGuire said:


> The question I ask is this - why are these groups/people coming out NOW? Why wait until now? Maybe they were always there but just didn't get enough attention... always confuses me the timing of these things.
> 
> Trump loves to troll the media and I figure stuff like this is always a side goal for him. Take something they despise, make it popular, watch them writhe in frustration and outrage. Horrible thing to do but very Trump like behavior.
> 
> I hate conspiracy theorists. I hate that mingled in with Trump 2020 supporters are the "Bill Gates caused Covid19!" and what not. I don't even want to try to know what QAnon is - I'm just glad my "inner circle" of conservative friends have never mentioned it.




QAnon isn’t popular even on my feed - including ultra super duper right wing activists - but I’ve seen some mentions. Nothing major.


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## BigMcGuire

yaxomoxay said:


> QAnon isn’t popular even on my feed - including ultra super duper right wing activists - but I’ve seen some mentions. Nothing major.



My wife showed me a pic of someone supposedly at a Trump rally with a QAnon poster/sign. <shrug> That's all I've seen of them (and this thread).

Another thing Trump supporters get tagged with I guess. .


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## Eric

BigMcGuire said:


> My wife showed me a pic of someone supposedly at a Trump rally with a QAnon poster/sign. <shrug> That's all I've seen of them (and this thread).
> 
> Another thing Trump supporters get tagged with I guess. .



Hey, this is a fair statement IMO. Same happens with dems and Antifa, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters and a dozen fringe idiots get all the coverage and notoriety.


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## lizkat

Hope QAnon believers are relatively harmless, because when I see anything about them I roll eyes and scroll past whatever it is.  The phrase "conspiracy theory" is usually not far away in any journalistic piece about them,  and so I just can't get myself to read further.   Needless to say then,  it doesn't bother me that FB has removed pages of their weird stuff.

Now I can understand my attitude might be a mistake in several different ways, e.g. they may not be harmless and FB is not some pipsqueak website but a gigantic platform, so "censorship" may not be at issue but it's possible that abuse of monopoly power might be...  etc., etc., but I'm gonna have to live with letting all that roll on by me in this case. 

I just can't get myself to try to learn more about QAnon than I already have done simply by not scrolling past stories about them fast enough.

Sure, cautionary visions of ostriches with heads in sand might be offered up from deep within my brain in the wake of my expressing disdain for QAnon, but...  that term "conspiracy theory" pops up once again and blots such second thoughts out almost immediately.   I've never experienced such a strong awareness of having a mental block before,  and I'm actually enjoying it.


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## Renzatic

BigMcGuire said:


> The question I ask is this - why are these groups/people coming out NOW? Why wait until now? Maybe they were always there but just didn't get enough attention... always confuses me the timing of these things.




There's always been a thread of paranoia running through American politics. Think of all the things we've fretted upon throughout our history, sometimes to the point of destructive ridiculousness. We've worried about the Catholics destroying our way of life, of the communists in our midst, of rock music corrupting the souls of the young, of Satanists snatching our children from daycares, of videogames producing a society of bloodthirsty psychopaths. These are the forces of evil our moral guardians and soccer moms have fought a ceaseless war over throughout our history, all stemming from this notion that America, our society, our world as we know it and love it, is a fragile thing constantly under attack by enemies seen and unseen, and the price we pay for our freedoms is perpetual hypervigilance.

QAnon is the latest example of of this mindset, exacerbated by hundreds of thousands of people networking together on social media, and stoked by a president who panders to it for votes.


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## yaxomoxay

Renzatic said:


> There's always been a thread of paranoia running through American politics. Think of all the things we've fretted upon throughout our history, sometimes to the point of destructive ridiculousness. We've worried about the Catholics destroying our way of life, of the communists in our midst, of rock music corrupting the souls of the young, of Satanists snatching our children from daycares, of videogames producing a society of bloodthirsty psychopaths. These are the forces of evil our moral guardians and soccer moms have fought a ceaseless war over throughout our history, all stemming from this notion that America, our society, our world as we know it and love it, is a fragile thing constantly under attack by enemies seen and unseen, and the price we pay for our freedoms is perpetual hypervigilance.
> 
> QAnon is the latest example of of this mindset, exacerbated by hundreds of thousands of people networking together on social media, and stoked by a president who panders to it for votes.




True. I remember finding in an used book I once bought this conspiracy theory driven article about John F. Kennedy (if he were to be elected). It was out of this world, I wish I'd kept it.


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## Renzatic

yaxomoxay said:


> True. I remember finding in an used book I once bought this conspiracy theory driven article about John F. Kennedy (if he were to be elected). It was out of this world, I wish I'd kept it.




Yup. I haven't read that book specifically, but I have read about some of the conspiracies that surrounded Kennedy. Even then, that anti-Catholic sentiment wasn't all that new. It had been around since at least the mid 19th century, stemming primarily from the Know Nothing movement, who feared a Catholic immigrant invasion coming in and destroying our culture and way of life.

And here we are, loving the Irish, and not a Catholic country in the damn least, despite all the fears to the contrary.


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## yaxomoxay

Renzatic said:


> Ywho feared a Catholic immigrant invasion coming in and destroying our culture and way of life.




… and they were right: I am now in the US!

All joking aside, yes. For some reason American politics is prone to conspiracies.


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## lizkat

yaxomoxay said:


> ...  For some reason American politics is prone to conspiracies.




American politics and underlying culture has long had a distinct anti-intellectual cast as well.  An expectation that education will be provided persists among parents but it doesn't necessarily or even all that often extend to reverence for advanced education, no matter if in the arts or sciences.

That may even help explain in modern times the rise of tactics like paying someone else to write essays, take assorted entrance-qualification or even licensing exams.  The purpose of those exercises may have got lost in the crush of apparent intention to just get them out of the way so the path to making a good living can be smoothed out.

Not sure where this came from, really...  because for a long time in American history, having even a one-room school in a village or country, with a real teacher giving the lessons,  was a sign of prestige and a source of local pride for an ordinary American community.   People even competed for the honor of providing the teacher's room and board.

That was then.  This is now when we mostly carp about school budgets being too high and figuring the place to cut is music and art.   

And yet...  some communities have library-assisted programs that kids end up enthusiastic about, like contests to "read 40 books this summer" and some of the kids get all fired up about it and become self-motivated readers for the rest of their lives. 

 Somewhere before end of middle school though, a lot of kids seem to lose that drive to read and learn on their own.   Also disappearing then, perhaps, is any interest in development of critical thinking skills.  

I'd say that we should try to figure out why, for the sake of the country, except that if it's "just a small percentage" maybe it doesn't matter?  I don't know.  A bunch of bad apples can rot all else in the barrel.  And as you said, the outliers that provide negative examples somehow seem to end up notoriousfamous for even more than 15 seconds apiece.   Tragic though if they end up notable for being ignorant enough to damage their health by ingesting toxic cleaning substances in hope of avoiding or curing covid-19.


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## chagla

Wish they acted sooner. Misinformation kills. I've come to realize that there are tons of people who are easily manipulated and don't know any better. It is a very dangerous thing to manipulate them.


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## hulugu

lizkat said:


> Nah, they're self-propelled somehow.  A mysteriously innate desire to run in a hamster wheel while claiming freedom of expression and special powers of analysis and innovation.




Yep. There's a guy here who's been on this train for years, and he keeps thundering on Facebook about a network of tunnels beneath Arizona's deserts that allows Soros' network to transport children for sexual slavery and murder. He bases this largely on the fact that a few years ago, he found a homeless encampment that had a few, errant and disused children's toys in a wash. 

When the local Republican sheriff ignored him, the sheriff became part of the cabal, which now involves dozens of local government officials, and according to our local lunatic, a entire small town is involved now as well. He runs around threatening people and being a general menace, and keeps getting prosecuted for small acts of vandalism and trespassing. And, he's fueled by a network of dummies who send him gift cards, which he launders into cash. 

Knocking this guy off social media hasn't worked, but it has minimized his ability to fundraise, which seems like a win.


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## Renzatic

hulugu said:


> Yep. There's a guy here who's been on this train for years, and he keeps thundering on Facebook about a network of tunnels beneath Arizona's deserts that allows Soros' network to transport children for sexual slavery and murder. He bases this largely on the fact that a few years ago, he found a homeless encampment that had a few, errant and disused children's toys in a wash.


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## SuperMatt

There's a QAnon true believer running for Congress right now. Maybe she can clear things up? She's in an area where they'd vote for a piece of toast as long as it's a Republican, so she will be in Congress soon.  Here are some of the things she believes in:









						GOP candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene spread conspiracies about Charlottesville and 'Pizzagate'
					

In the years before she ran for office, GOP congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote two conspiracy-laden blog posts speculating that the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to one counter-protester's death was an "inside job" and promoting a debunked...




					www.cnn.com


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## Alli

I was disturbed to see on the news today how QAnon has taken hold in Germany. Is the world just aching for a real conspiracy? Can they not just read a Dan Brown novel?!


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## lizkat

Renzatic said:


> View attachment 269






^^^ That graphic seems about the size of it lately anyway.


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## Renzatic

SuperMatt said:


> She's in an area where they'd vote for a piece of toast as long as it's a Republican, so she will be in Congress soon.




Ah, home sweet home.

The funny thing is her opposition is another Republican, who's been deemed not Republican enough by my friends and neighbors.


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## SuperMatt

Alli said:


> I was disturbed to see on the news today how QAnon has taken hold in Germany. Is the world just aching for a real conspiracy? Can they not just read a Dan Brown novel?!




Or read the Mueller report?


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## SuperMatt

Here‘s some scary stuff about Facebook.









						Facebook is a 'parallel universe' of lies and minisformation crafted to deliver the election to Trump | Boing Boing
					

The New York Times’s Kevin Roose says that Facebook has become “a completely parallel universe, in which Trump’s response to Covid-19 has been fast and effective; in which these r…




					boingboing.net
				




It is already a tool of fascism in some countries - the US is next.


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