TL;DR Breakdown
- QAnon posted #SubpoenaObama.
- Trump re-tweeted the Obama tweet.
- Ethereum (ETC) technology can end the fake news era.
The Ethereum blockchain can thwart QAnon fake news
Monday morning there was a tweet by the notorious conspiracy theory group called the QAnon. The tweet was #SubpoenaObama.
The tweet itself did not expand on what the # meant, but those who follow the group would understand it. #SubpoenaObama is referring to the idea that Obama, before leaving his presidency in 2017 did all he could to prevent Trump’s presidency from reaching its full potential.
Most people like to point their fingers at someone when they lose. This group of Trump supporters not only wanted to play the blame game but encouraged their supporters to re-tweet the # so divine powers could change the future.
Misinformation spread like wildfire and according to the Network of Contagion Research Institute, 4,000 tweets occurred every hour. The flames climbed their way to former Fox Nation personalities like Diamond and Silk and influencer Glenn Beck.
Trump, the King of misinformation, added his seal of approval yesterday by re-tweeting the Obama tweet and in his usual style called Obama to court.
Fake news
The QAnon incident speaks into a larger issue, and that is fake news. Donald Trump and his supporters have normalized fake news so much that such a tweet can gain so much coverage.
Not all the blame can be pointed to Trump, though, as fake news has crept itself into some media outlets. Media institutions are even looking for ways to ensure that they do not fall for deep fakes which are videos that look real but are entirely false.
Social media outlets are trying to control the spread of fake news, but QAnon proved their efforts are not enough. Ethereum (ETH) blockchain can help people work out right from wrong.
How Ethereum can help
The University of Arkansas, Blockchain Centre of Excellence, completed a case study on ANSAcheck. ANSAcheck was created by an Italian top news service and audit firm. The system checks if the news story comes from ANSA.
The move to authenticate information came as a result of fake news being launched under the ANSA brand. The project started in 2019.
ANSAcheck assigns a unique hash ID to every ANSA created news story. The hash from ANSAcheck is then posted into Ethereum.
If even just one component of the story is changed, the system will label the piece as fake news. The system is efficient as stories are batched and posted multiple times a day to ETH.
ANSA can update stories on its website, and this is recorded on the blockchain. What makes this system useful for busting fake news is that readers can enquire about the source of the story on the blockchain.
Using systems like ANSAcheck could help establish a higher standard and expectation for news. Once people feel confident again that there is a way to verify the news, people will be less susceptible to conspiracy theorists like QAnon.
We must move away from the fake news era, and blockchain can take us there.
