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

The report examines the role of gender-based violence (GBV) in the coordinated harassment of six celebrities by the QAnon community. Through the analysis of over 9 million posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, the authors find that while accusations of paedophilia are the primary driver of abuse, gender, race, and sexual orientation significantly amplify the volume and nature of the harassment. Women, particularly women of colour, experience higher rates of targeted hate and gender-specific abuse. The report identifies 'flashpoints'—unrelated negative media events—as catalysts that QAnon adherents leverage to amplify existing conspiracy narratives and coordinate 'brigading' campaigns. The authors argue that the 'paedophile' label serves as a tool for dehumanization, justifying mob justice and creating a persistent baseline of harassment that often extends to the targets' family members.

• QAnon-coordinated harassment frequently manifests as high-volume 'brigading', where targets are bombarded with slanderous accusations of paedophilia, often using graphic language involving rape and abduction.
• Gender is a primary determining factor in the intensity of harassment; in every case study pair, the female celebrity experienced a higher percentage of QAnon-related terms and online harassment on Twitter than her male counterpart.
• Women in the study faced significant levels of gender-specific abuse, with female abuse terms making up 32.2% of terms for Chrissy Teigen, 30% for Ellen DeGeneres, and 19.1% for Oprah Winfrey.
• Unrelated negative media stories, termed 'flashpoints', are leveraged by the QAnon community to amplify existing disinformation narratives and increase the volume of harassing activity.
• Race acts as an amplifying factor in gender-based violence, with women of colour experiencing more direct forms of GBV hate and the compounding impact of racist tropes.
• The 'paedophile' label creates a baseline of dehumanization and demonization that justifies targeted hate and provides a rationale for concomitant sexist, racist, or homophobic speech.
• Harassment is often coordinated through the sharing of target lists, which serve as markers for the community to identify and attack individuals, including those only tangentially related to the core conspiracy.
• Anti-LGBTQ+ hate was particularly prominent in the case of Jussie Smollett, showing a significant difference in the rate of such mentions compared to other LGBTQ+ individuals in the study.
• Antisemitic tropes remain a consistent, low-level theme across almost all cases, linking celebrities to conspiracies involving 'global elites' or 'Jews'.
• Harassment is cross-platform and persistent, with some targets like Tom Hanks, Chrissy Teigen, and Anderson Cooper experiencing sustained baseline hate that also extends to their family members.

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/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/QAnon-and-Gender.pdf

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/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/QAnon-and-Gender.pdf.

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=2022 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/QAnon-and-Gender.pdf |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}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/QAnon-and-Gender.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }