June 23, 2020
#AllLivesMater
Early Tuesday morning, the hashtag #AllLivesMater [sic] was seen trending on Twitter in Canada. What’s different about this time, is that KPOP fans are spamming the hashtag with fan cams and memes featuring KPOP stars. This phenomena was reported on earlier in June, when KPOP fans flooded QANON hashtags.
This activity was reportedly encouraged by a member of the hacktivist group ANONYMOUS - @YourAnonNews. This tweet below is reported as being the tweet that started the information pushback by KPOP fans. It received an incredible amount of engagement with over 158,000 likes.
At the time of writing, a majority of posts using the hashtag are by KPOP fan accounts, confusing and frustrating the QANON linked accounts.
Some QANON supporters were visibly annoyed. @LdneOfficial complained, “I just want to look at a fair [expletive] debate. I want to hear points for and against.” This user may have forgot that QANON has been suspected of having links to Russian bots and trolls that help further its pro-Trump, conspiracy theory laced narrative.
The use of that hashtag #BlackLivesMater appears to be a mockery of QANON supporters, which frequently misspell #AllLivesMatter as #AllLivesMater.
Some people were happy with the efforts of KPOP, including @alicebonasio, saying “watching #AllLivesMater stupid and racist hashtag get trolled into insignificance yet again makes me ever so happy…” It is about time a group took it on themselves to fight back against Kremlin and Washington-linked disinformation campaigns.
The Dangers of QANON
QANON - for those who don’t know - is a far right, over-the-top conspiracy theory. QANON followers believe in a person called Q, which is a Jesus-like figure, that shares inside scoops from inside the US Government. The main website where these posts are shared is on Qmap.pub.
Trump has even retweeted accounts linked to QANON multiple times. According to an article by USA Today, Trump has retweeted tweets from QANON linked accounts over 130 times.
The objective of KPOP appears to be drowning out the message and conspiracy theories of QANON, and it seems to be working. It will be interesting to see how QANON supporters respond to this blowback.
In the age of COVID-19 and a Trump presidency, it’s imperative that people have access to accurate information. The troll network that props up QANON is a danger to society, and it’s good that KPOP fans have taken it upon themselves to fight fire with fire.
More work needs to be done by law enforcement and social media companies to crack down on dangerous disinformation. Until then, we can rely on KPOP fans to help drown out the noise.
Article by: Mark Slapinski