Breakfast with Q-A-Mom: Understanding & Combatting the Stealth Threat of Women Engaged with Digital Domestic Terrorist Organizations

Authors

Leah A. Plunkett, Harvard Law School

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This essay proceeds in three parts. It provides (1) a high-level description of what QAnon is and who the Q-A-Moms are; (2) an analysis of how and why women join QAnon, importing the general “quest for personal significance” framework (characterized by “need[s], network, and narrative”) from researchers in psychology to legal scholarship for this specific query into Q-A-Moms; and (3) an initial thought challenge to building the solution space for combatting the threat Q-A-Moms pose. This approach takes the core of the Facebook Supreme Court model (creating new quasi-judicial and law enforcement structures within the private digital sector to address novel problems caused by social media) and creates a new social media rough equivalent of a diversion program within a local court system to address the real life harms that Q-A-Moms (and participants in other hate-based online conspiracy theory movements) are causing to themselves, their families, their communities, and our public health, public safety, and democratic institutions.

Recommended Citation

Leah A. Plunkett, Breakfast with Q-A-Mom: Understanding & Combatting the Stealth Threat of Women Engaged with Digital Domestic Terrorist Organizations, 3 Notre Dame J. on Emerging Tech. 1 (2022).