Chapter 3.2: Saviour or Menace? Crowdsourcing Open Source Research and the Rise of QAnon

Crowdsourcing volunteer research can enable open source investigations to proceed more quickly, cheaply and effectively. Public contributions to larger research projects have proven able to provide positive outcomes in achieving transparency and justice to crimes and wrongdoing. However, they can also be the route to inaccurate findings and subsequent destructive mob justice. This chapter explores both the benefits of crowdsourcing and its dark side. After considering the elements of a productive crowdsourcing effort, it will examine the rise of the QAnon movement and how it was able to thrive, culminating in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol Hill riot. The movement used many techniques nearly identical to benign open source research projects. While there are limits to how far damaging applications can be restrained, methodological differences provide lessons about how best to conduct crowdsourcing so that it generates reliable findings while also guarding against harmful trends.