After failing to install Donald Trump for a second term, QAnon supporters lashed out with a “Dislike” campaign against President Joe Biden’s inauguration live stream on YouTube.
January 20th, 2021 will go down as the worst day to be a QAnon believer. After building up conspiracy theories that somehow Donald Trump would be sworn in for a second term as president, confused QAnon supporters watched the inauguration in disbelief as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as President and Vice President.
As a consolation, QAnon members launched a successful online “dislike” campaign against Biden’s YouTube live stream.
“Dear friends, all of you go to the link below and click “dislike” Joe Biden’s inauguration video,” said the chat message on Telegram with the YouTube link provided.
While it’s impossible to determine for sure how many QAnon supporters responded to the call, the inauguration video earned a lopsided 4,200 likes versus 46,000 dislikes.
As of Jan 24, the video had more than 500,000 views.
The “dislike” campaign appears to be going against YouTube’s Fake Engagement policy which states:
“YouTube doesn’t allow anything that artificially increases the number of views, likes, comments, or other metric either through the use of automatic systems or by serving up videos to unsuspecting viewers. Additionally, content that solely exists to incentivize viewers for engagement (views, likes, comments, etc) is prohibited.”
While the word “dislikes” manipulation is not directly mentioned in the YouTube policy, the QAnon effort is ill-motivated to create a false impression toward public view regarding Biden’s inauguration video.
One has to wonder if this desperate act is the new tactic the group, currently under siege because of its members’ participation in the Jan 6, 2021 Insurrection of the US Capitol that left at least 5 people dead, plans to employ to sabotage the Biden-Harris administration.
Editor’s Note: This story is still developing.