The Invisible War

How I found myself as both a war reporter of sorts and a combatant

When I started to investigate QAnon, the thing that surprised me the most was the near complete isolation of that reality from the rest of the world, even on shared platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

This is by design. QAnon is based in part on “alternate reality games” (ARGs) which is an internet gaming concept that I helped develop nearly 20 years ago. The idea is to build a set of clues, puzzles and content on the internet and in the real world that players could put together into a story. An invisible game in the real world, you might say.

The phenomenon that my colleagues and I both feared and relied on was the feverish devotion to puzzle-solving and the collaborative social dynamics that emerged around it. If we didn’t provide a clear schedule or enough content, the players would find “puzzles” that didn’t exist and “solutions” that didn’t make sense.

Regardless, when people are motivated, whether it’s through an entertainment affinity or a political one, the social dynamics around this game design are powerful.

When I visited QAnon Twitter (Qwitter) in August 2020, I recognized immediately by “feel” what was going on. This was just experience and intuition flashing red lights that QAnon was, as a wrote two weeks later, “an Enormous Alternate Reality Game Run by Malevolent Puppetmasters.” I included Mike Flynn, Jim Watkins, and Chanel Rion from OANN on the cover.

But for most “normies” they had no idea what was going on. They just knew that their friends and family seemed to be getting picked off and indoctrinated into an online cult, even if they wouldn’t describe it that way. People just started acting weird.

This was an invisible war.

Tens of millions of people were being psychologically attacked and recruited under all of our noses. As I wrote in Jane’s Story, it can happen to anyone. And it did. To a lot of us. A third of the country is brainwashed into a death cult, ready to act against their own self-interests for the cult leaders benefit. It still happens all day long.

But no one was calling it a cult. It was an “internet phenomenon” or a “bunch of crazies who spend too much time online.” And there was an enormous amount of disinformation about it, mostly ridicule rather than any serious look at it.

So I started to “cover” the invisible war on Medium and Twitter. This resonated with a lot of people, much more than I expected. The reason was that so many of people had loved ones that are casualties of the war. An explanation of what it was and how it worked was really helpful to them.

At that point, I started to be more of an activist and did a number of things that I believed would be helpful, including helping lead the effort to stop the left from going to the Capitol on January 6th. I also started a volunteer group to share the advice of cult experts on how to help loved ones in QAnon.

And then I became a casualty myself.

The invisible war hopped the fence as it were and I started to get attacked, not just from the right wing but from the “left.”

Of all the mistakes I have made, underestimating the size and power of the invisible “controlled opposition” to QAnon was the biggest. I attracted hundreds of accounts dedicated to destroying me, my work, my volunteer group and any friendships and relationships I had developed. This was supposedly a group of “leftists” and “experts.” It was and is… crazy — and to most people, invisible.

But right now, you can just search my last name, or “StewAnon,” and see dozens and dozens of accounts using psychological warfare tactics against me right now. I don’t say that lightly. These are professionals. They are just the mirror of MAGA3X which started Pizzagate and QAnon which sent teams of professional trolls into online communities to radicalize them, enforce the narrative and shut down any dissidents.

I’m opinionated and I cuss but otherwise have never been abusive on any social media account. Ever. To the contrary, I consider this a war FOR empathy. I have always acted that way, and as a target I have always been careful not to break any rules.

Despite this, the team of professional trolls assigned to attack me cooperated with Twitter and got me permanently banned for literally nothing.

I was covering the invisible war when few others were and I was a leader in the fight.

My ban was an operation to silence me. And Twitter, Inc. cooperated with it — intentionally.

Twitter also knew what was going to happen on January 6th, both because me and my friends were screaming our heads off about it on their platform and because a whistleblower was screaming about it on the inside.

Twitter knew what would happen on 1/6. But Jack Dorsey was fine with it because he’s an anarchist. They only got rid of QAnon and Trump when the PR people told them they had to. Twitter was and is corrupt and needs to clean house.

To put it differently, Twitter is an enemy combatant in the invisible war.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect Twitter to show their cards that way. I also didn’t expect a bunch of leftists to act like 8chan trolls and try to get me to kill myself. And I didn’t expect Twitter to protect them at all costs when it happened. These accounts break Twitter rules every day but nothing is done because it’s what Twitter wants. They are there to enforce the narrative that Twitter approves of and silence anyone else.

The level of effort, time and money put into keeping me quiet brings me some joy in my engineered exile. To this day, the futile effort to shut me up is draining their money and effort and as their lies get exposed their desperation becomes palpable. They’ve even sent Mike Flynn’s brother to attack me on Substack. No shame at all.

While this war is still mostly invisible, I see some signs that their cloaking device is running out of batteries and people are seeing through it.

Of course, when a predator is spotted by its prey, that’s the most dangerous time for everyone involved. As the invisible war becomes visible, it will become more intense and more violent, but at least more of us will be able to see what we’re up against and help us defeat it.

#ArrestMikeFlynn