Experts reveal how to spot QAnon, anti-vaxxer fake news

Disinformation is everywhere online, some of it is hard to even detect, here’s the expert guide to recognising the gateways to QAnon and conspiracy land.

Conspiracists believe their “research” has led them to a secret truth – but the path to QAnon’s communities in Australia is just a few clicks away.

If you search Facebook for information about Sydney’s Delta outbreak you’ll be shown official health advice from Facebook on the dangers of Covid-19, as well as articles from reputable news sources.

A Qanon photo posted by an IMOP Party candidate.

Among the next results are pages and groups posting about lockdown rallies and the vaccine – these are the gateways to rabbit holes.

A popular page on Facebook has spent months sharing articles from a dinky website that claims everyone taking the vaccine is a “guinea pig”.

The page also shares badly photoshopped images purporting that Covid was planned or is “a hoax by the global elites”.

Monash University said fringe groups were using pandemic conspiracy theories to recruit new members.

Photoshopped news reports or unfamiliar news websites are a major warning sign, experts say, that you’ve wandered into tinfoil hat land, as well as pixelated ­images, mismatched fonts or unknown sources.

If you search for more information about any of the claims made in this QAnon-lite territory you will likely be introduced to private Facebook groups where reality is a long lost memory.

The groups are full of Australians reciting anti-­Semitic conspiracies, QAnon believers and anti-vaxxers.  

The University of Western Sydney found only 39 per cent of Australians were confident they could identify fake news.

Researchers warn misinformation could divide Australia’s society and threaten its democracy and called for training in school and adult life.