"Recent Democratic Party Supporters Actively Embrace Conspiracy Theories"
Trump Conspiracy Theory 'QAnon' Compared to 'BlueAnon'
"Aggressive Investigations via SNS Fuel Political Violence"
Conflicts between political camps over the assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump are intensifying in the form of conspiracy theories on social networking services (SNS). Analysts say that baseless rumors spread through SNS are recently surging worldwide, further amplifying political violence.
While Trump’s supporters have actively carried unverified claims to bolster their camp, this behavior has recently been spreading among Democratic supporters as well, according to The Washington Post (WP) on the 14th (local time).
According to WP, Democratic supporters claimed on SNS that the blood on Trump’s ear was theatrical gel, or that the assassination attempt was fabricated through cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Secret Service (SS). When a photo of the injured Trump raising his fist under the American flag went viral, they tagged it with the hashtag #scripted.
WP described the conspiracy theories produced by Democratic supporters as “BlueAnon,” likening them to the “QAnon” conspiracy theories produced by Trump supporters.
The BlueAnon theories shown by Democratic supporters on SNS are relatively recent. According to WP, during the first TV presidential debate on the 27th of last month, supporters attributed President Biden’s stuttering and other behaviors? which sparked concerns about his cognition and health? to drug use. On the 5th, they claimed that ABC deliberately made Biden’s voice sound weaker during an interview. Regarding a New York Times (NYT) op-ed by actor George Clooney, a fervent Biden supporter, calling for Biden’s resignation, they spread conspiracy theories suggesting it was a personal grudge against Biden for supporting Israel in the Gaza war.
WP reported, “Experts and influential figures are significantly contributing to the production and spread of BlueAnon,” adding that “community distortions surrounding political ideology are spreading beyond the right wing.” For example, Dmitri Melkhon, a political advisor to Reid Hoffman? a major Democratic donor and LinkedIn founder? claimed in an email to supporters about the Trump shooting incident that “this ‘shooting incident,’ which is very common worldwide, may have been staged so that Trump could benefit.”
Experts note that while Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) remains a major hub for conspiracy theories, Meta Platforms’ Threads has recently emerged as a hotbed for BlueAnon. This is because many far-right influencer accounts began to be restored on X after its rebranding, prompting Democratic supporters to move to Threads.
Republican supporters are also spreading conspiracy theories through SNS. WP explained that they claimed the shooter was an anti-Trump activist or that the shooting was an FBI plan to incite copycat attacks.
Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), said, “Currently, conspiracy theories are spreading intensely between supporters of the two major political parties in the U.S..”
On the same day, Bloomberg reported that extreme rhetoric amplified on SNS is increasingly leading to real-world attacks. Even relatively recently, before the Trump assassination attempt, political assassinations or attempts have continued in Asia such as South Korea and Japan, Latin America such as Brazil, and Europe such as Slovakia, with analyses suggesting that one cause of this political violence may be the rhetoric amplified on SNS.
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