This week Ben is away, and Mell talks to guest host Simon about the recent anti-lockdown protests in Sydney and Melbourne. There was an array of different beliefs driving these protests, ranging from libertarian style concerns for privacy and personal freedoms, through to ‘anti-vaxxers’ and ‘5G Truthers’.
We look into one relatively recent conspiracy theory which seems to be driving much of the protest movement in the US and Australia, called QAnon. There is a lot of resonance with older conspiracy theories, but QAnon benefits from a ‘crowdsourcing of narrative’ that gives it the fluidity to adjust its ideas and gather mass appeal. There are also some fairly extremist religious, and very troubling racial elements lurking in mix.