She Drops: How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Legitimize Coordinated and Targeted Gender Based Violence

The report analyzes over 9 million social media posts to examine how QAnon conspiracy theories drive coordinated harassment and gender-based violence against high-profile individuals, finding that targets are frequently brigaded with slanderous accusations of paedophilia.

• Analysis of over 9 million posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter from late 2019 to the end of 2020 reveals that celebrities significant to QAnon narratives—including Chrissy Teigen, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, Anderson Cooper, Jussie Smollett, and Oprah Winfrey—were targets of coordinated harassment, brigading, dogpilling, slander, and hate.
• The most prevalent form of harassment identified in the study involved the use of brigading to target individuals with slanderous accusations of paedophilia, frequently employing graphic and disturbing language.

APA

Argentino, M.-A., Raja, A., & Gallagher, A. (2022). She Drops: How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Legitimize Coordinated and Targeted Gender Based Violence. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/publication/she-drops-how-qanon-conspiracy-theories-legitimize-coordinated-and-targeted-gender-based-violence/

Chicago

Argentino, Marc-André, Adnan Raja, and Aoife Gallagher. She Drops: How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Legitimize Coordinated and Targeted Gender Based Violence. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2022. https://www.isdglobal.org/publication/she-drops-how-qanon-conspiracy-theories-legitimize-coordinated-and-targeted-gender-based-violence/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Argentino |first1=Marc-André |last2=Raja |first2=Adnan |last3=Gallagher |first3=Aoife |title=She Drops: How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Legitimize Coordinated and Targeted Gender Based Violence |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=10 October 2022 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/publication/she-drops-how-qanon-conspiracy-theories-legitimize-coordinated-and-targeted-gender-based-violence/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{argentino2022she, author = {Argentino, Marc-André and Raja, Adnan and Gallagher, Aoife}, title = {{She Drops: How QAnon Conspiracy Theories Legitimize Coordinated and Targeted Gender Based Violence}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2022}, month = oct, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/publication/she-drops-how-qanon-conspiracy-theories-legitimize-coordinated-and-targeted-gender-based-violence/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }