Was the founder of QAnon identified by machine learning?

The mysterious Q, the founder of QAnon, has reportedly been identified. Two independent studies came to the same conclusions.

With the help of machine learning software, scientists may have uncovered the identity of Q, the founder of the QAnon movement. In a very recent article, The New York Times shares the discovery of two independent groups of forensic linguists claiming to have identified Paul Ferber, a South African software engineer, as the original author of Q. They also claim that Arizona congressional candidate Ron Watkins also wrote under this pseudonym, first collaborating with Paul Ferber before taking over the account.

Mysterious Q, founder of QAnon, would be identified

Two groups of Swiss and French researchers used different methods to reach the same conclusion. A Swiss team of two researchers from startup OrphAnalytics used software to split the letters Q into sequences of three characters. They then analyzed the repetition of these sequences. In the meantime, a French team has developed an artificial intelligence model to look for specific patterns in Q’s handwriting. The two methods refer to so-called stylometry, which uses statistics to describe the stylistic properties of text. The teams limited their research to analyzing social media posts, and of all the possible authors tested, the works of Paul Ferber and Ron Watkins were the most similar.

Two independent studies came to the same conclusions

And their result would leave no room for doubt. For the French team, the probability is 98% for Paul Ferber and 99% for Ron Watkins: “In the beginning, most of the lyrics are written by Ferber, but Ron Watkins’ signature progresses over the first months, while Paul Ferber’s signature decreases to disappear. completely,” explains Florian Cafiero, a member of the French team. According to Professor Patrick Juola, a computer scientist in stylometry, “What is really important is the fact that two independent analyzes showed the same patterns.”

Paul Ferber and Ron Watkins, for their part, deny they wrote any message from Q. However, it’s hard to see what might happen now. The researchers hope that exposing Q in this way will help reduce its impact on people. These conspiracy theories, widely circulated on social media, have big repercussions, not just in the United States. And while Q hasn’t published anything since late 2020, the massive hype about deep state conspiracies hasn’t abated.