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Qanon is an attempt to create a new reality that can be acted on, lived in “as-if”, and manipulated, but does not match actual reality. Because if they can do that, then they can do anything they want and blame the outcomes on any fictional plot point they choose. One tentacle of a many-pronged attack of boogaloo bros, Qanons, Anti-maskers, Fake News, Alex Jones, etc. Scattershot programs all with the same message and the same end-game. To doubt reality. To create the fog of war without the war. To create a collectively shared reality that they directly control.

The difference is that these manufactured connections lead to the desired conclusions Q’s handlers have created. When players arrive at the “correct” answers they are showered with adoration, respect, and social credit. Like a teenage RP, the “correct” answer is the one that the group respects the most and makes the story the most enjoyable. The idea that bolsters the theory. The correct answer is the one that provides the poster with the most credit.

In the first link, the author slides into the narrative that this is somehow controlled and channeled. My take is that QAnon is a bit of collaborative insanity. People like a good story better than they like the real world (which I guess is where the author and I agree). While there is some potential for control and channeling of propaganda, my take is that it's like herding cats. You might get most of the cats to go one way or another sometimes, but you're not going to get any sort of collective movement that does what you want it to do when you want it. As a tool, it just can't do that.

On the second:

Already, then, QAnon supporters are trying to have an increased impact on mainstream discourse in the United States. With this mainstreaming, as well as the impending presidential election that seems likely to only increase QAnon’s salience, an increasing frequency of criminal or violent acts by QAnon supporters seems possible, even likely.102 While the aforementioned criminal acts seem largely motivated by QAnon, only Matthew Philip Wright has been charged with a terrorism offense. However, the 2020 Hanau shisha bar attack presents one example of how conspiracy theories can help propel larger-scale terrorist attacks.103 If more individuals with greater organizational skills and operational acumen seek to pursue QAnon’s agenda, it could eventually lead to more significant threats to public security and become a more impactful domestic terrorism threat, though this potential development appears, at present, to be far on the horizon.

However, the threat to public security that QAnon presents is not exclusive to the movement and the cases described above, but rather, is representative of broader currents in the American information landscape. The increased consumption and circulation of misinformation on social media, as well as its negative consequences, is evinced especially by QAnon, but its effects on public safety are not limited to it. The emergence of future (related or unrelated) conspiracy theories that may be effective at radicalizing individuals to terrorist violence should thus not be ruled out as threats to public security.

Regulation of QAnon content by social media companies, activity which would be guided and governed by the adherence of QAnon supporters to respective platforms terms of service, may present one pathway to decreasing the likelihood of individual radicalization to violence.104 This could operate similarly to Facebook and Twitter regulation of jihadi content by the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida affiliates. On July 21, 2020, Twitter announced105 that it will be taking action against QAnon in light of “coordinated harmful activity.” Already Twitter has suspended 7,000 accounts and will be limiting 150,000 more.106

QAnon is classified here as a "threat to public safety", based on very slim pretext. I wonder if narratives that result in calls for censorship are similarly threats to public safety? Seems possible, even likely, amirite?

I guess my beef here comes from the latter "threat to public safety" stuff. QAnon is less of a risk to public safety than narratives that exaggerate it as a threat and then on that basis propose substantial harm on society. But that's the same sort of games that QAnon plays in the first place. Surely, our discourse and strategoes for dealing with QAnon should be better than the processes that created QAnon.