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Using machine learning software, computer scientists may have unmasked the identity of Q, the founder of the QAnon movement. In a lengthy report released on Saturday, shared the findings of two independent teams of forensic linguists who claim to have identified Paul Furber, a South African software developer who was one of the first to draw attention to the conspiracy theory, as the original author behind Q. They say he’s a congressional candidate in Arizona Ron Watkins also wrote under the alias, initially in collaboration with Furber and later when he took over the account when he eventually transitioned to posting on his father’s 8chan forum.
The two teams of Swiss and French researchers used different methods to reach the same conclusion. The Swiss, made up of two researchers from the startup, used software to break down Q̵
7;s letters into patterns of three-digit sequences. They then tracked how often these sequences repeated. The French team, meanwhile, trained an AI to look for patterns in Q’s writing. Both techniques broadly fall under an approach known as stylometry, which aims to analyze writing in a way that is measurable, consistent, and reproducible. To avoid the possibility of confusing their respective programs, the teams limited their analysis to social media posts. Of all the other possible authors they put to the test, Furber and Watkins’ writing stood out the most because it was very similar to Q’s.
And they trust in this identification. The French team around the computer linguists Florian Cafiero and Jean-Baptiste Camps tells the story The times Their software correctly identified Furber’s typeface 98 percent of the time and Watkins’ 99 percent of the time. “First of all, most of the text comes from Furber,” said Cafiero. “But Ron Watkins’ signature increased for the first few months as Paul Furber decreased and then dropped off completely.”
People have previously identified Harry Potter author JK Rowling as the secret author of The call of the cuckoo, a 2013 crime thriller that Rowling wrote under the pen name Robert Galbraith. More broadly, law enforcement agencies have successfully used stylometry in a variety of criminal cases, including by the FBI to show that Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber.
Experts | The times spoke to — including Professor Patrick Juola, the computer scientist who identified Rowling as the author of The call of the cuckoo – said they found the results credible and convincing. “What’s really telling is that both of the two independent analyzes showed the same overall pattern,” Juola said.
Both Furber and Watkins deny that they wrote messages from Q. “I’m not Q,” said the latter The times. Furber, meanwhile, said he was influenced by Q’s posts to change the style of his prose, a claim the outlet’s language experts said was “unbelievable.” Also worth noting is the fact that the analysis included tweets from Furber dating back to the earliest days of Q’s existence.
What happens next is unclear. That’s what the researchers who worked on the identification said The times They hope that unmasking Q will loosen QAnon’s grip on people. The conspiracy theory spread like wildfire on social media and had a profound impact on politics in the US and other parts of the world. And while Q hasn’t posted a new message since late 2020, that hasn’t dampened people’s enthusiasm for conspiracies about the “deep state” and its involvement in their lives.
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