Disinformation: Part 2
Listen now
Description
While we were putting this episode together, we quickly realized the vast, convoluted scope of QAnon, its tantalizing effect its followers and the bit players who conspired to propagate the lie were bigger and more twisted than we'd imagined. QAnon, we learned, is many things to many people.  So we decided to focus on a question we kept encountering: what to do about the untold legions who have fallen for QAnon's intoxicating allure. Could they be disabused of their beliefs and brought back to the mainstream? There is a temptation to lash out at these destructive - and so obviously false - conspiracy theories and the violence they helped unleash upon the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. But the wiser course, experts told us, is to walk toward QAnon believers with compassion and empathy.  In this episode, Major meets Jitarth Jadeja, a thirty something Australian who spent two years locked in QAnon's vice grip. When he emerged, chastened and deeply shamed, Jadeja made it his mission to help pull others out of the rabbit hole.
More Episodes
Investigative journalist Javier Leiva spent two years uncovering new information on a potential stalker. The victims claim that their daughter's doctor is a cyberstalker who terrorized them for three years. But in a strange turn of events, the victims were indicted for causing harassment against...
Published 01/18/24
International Spy Museum curator and historian Dr. Andrew Hammond leads a panel discussion on the most damaging mole in FBI history, Robert Hanssen. Panelists include Agent of Betrayal host, Major Garrett; Dr. David L. Charney, the psychiatrist who met with Hanssen for a year after he went to...
Published 12/22/23
On February 18, 2001, Robert Hanssen’s career as an FBI agent came to an end. His next tour of duty would be served in the federal penal system as inmate #48551-083. Supermax, the notorious Colorado prison housing terrorists and drug lords, would become his home for two decades. Life in prison...
Published 11/16/23