Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Former QAnon follower explains why she left the movement" video.

  1. I agree that it’s a cult, but its viral nature is heretofore unseen, and that’s worth studying and understanding. Lemon kept trying to get this cult escapee to “blame social media”, but he cut her off before she could develop her more nuanced answer about how social media envelops users into these conspiracy nut echo chambers. This is very disappointing! I realize Lemon needs quick and simple answers to fill the format of his show . . . to maximize viewer engagement. Haha, so ironic.
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  2. She started making a very interesting point about the recommendation algorithms used to populate our media feeds, and Lemon blew right past it. There isn’t any one single key to unlock the puzzle of how so many have been captured by QAnon, but “the algorithm” is an important one. Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes the results are poor. Example: I started watching Jomboy’s sports breakdowns because they are comedy gold, not because I’m really into sports. The result is that YouTube is recommending videos from many other sports vloggers. There must be thousands of them. But that’s one thing. More insidious is what began happening when I began watching a lot of WWII history videos. That’s when the recommendation algorithm began feeding me neonazi and conspiracy based “secret history” videos. One can exercise a bit of control by selecting “don’t show me videos from this channel”, but I wonder to what degree the algorithm can be manipulated by search engine optimization techniques.
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