Samizdat

Mr. Paul Furber of South Africa was an Anon and a Moderator on 4chan in October, 2017. On the 27th of that month, he noticed cryptic posts on the /pol/ board. It was a couple of days before the author of those posts began signing himself as “Q,” but Mr. Furber immediately recognized that something unusual was happening.

In the ensuing days and weeks, Mr. Furber became the original Q evangelist. To this day, Mr. Furber still considers himself “under orders from the original Q,” and he continues to promote the Q superconspiracy.

Paul Furber is one reason why QAnon went viral. The role that Mr. Furber played in the early stages of the Q phenomenon led some to suspect that Paul Furber himself was the elusive Q. This was my primary motive in asking him for an interview.

BLUF: I no longer suspect that Paul Furber is QAnon. This long interview (nearly two hours) is rich in detail and it showcases his thinking beyond all preceding coverage: the website heavy published a biopic about him on the same day that an influential NBC News article appeared criticizing the Q superconspiracy. Both were components in a coordinated fake news attack on Q that began in late July, 2018, and continued into September of that year. Read the rest of this entry »