Parler Games: Conspiracy Theory, Insurrection, and Computational Folkloristics
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the social media platform Parler jumped to prominence, gaining huge popularity among people claiming that the election had been stolen. Over the course of a few short months, venting and anger turned to strategizing, organizing, and exhortation to #Stopthesteal. Using methods from data science and the study of storytelling, our group identified the underlying narrative framework driving these conversations. The outcome of our investigations is sobering: posters to Parler had created a vast conspiracy theory that led them to conspire to attack the Capitol. In this presentation, we pinpoint moments when the conversations changed, turning whispers and conspiracy theories into real world action before, during, and after the insurrection.
Speaker:
Timothy R. Tangherlini is a professor in the Scandinavian Department, Director of the Folklore Program, and Associate Director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science. His work sits at the intersection of informal culture, storytelling, and AI. Using a combination of methods from the study of folklore and from machine learning, he has explored the simultaneous rise of the Danish dairy cooperatives and the disappearance of witches; parenting blogs and the emergence of vaccine hesitancy; conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate, #filmyourhospital, Birds Aren't Real, QAnon and #Stopthesteal; as well as actual conspiracies, such as Bridgegate.