1/ For all those now reporting on QAnon following the events of last week. "Q" has not posted since December 8. QAnon is a self sustaining movement and ideology, with as many variations as there are influencers and conspiracy theories latched on to the central QAnon tenet.

2/ the movement does not need "Q" or Qdrops the same way other religions do not need new prophets or updated sacred texts. QAnon adherents and influencers are applying historical critical methods to Qdrops to interpret and find meaning for current events.

3/ their concept of no "outside coms" ("Q" only posts on his 8kun board) acts as a way of creating a Canon and protects the movement from QAnon "heretics". Therefore the authority now lies with those who have been in the movement since the beginning.

4/ already in QAnon followers and influencers are calling Lin Wood a deep state plant and false prophet for his lies and overpromising on constitutional witchcraft that will give Trump the presidency.

5/ what all of this means is that the influencers in the community who are trusted and have been around since the beginning have gained a large amount of authority in the movement and will be able to play a role in dictating behaviors.

6/ another element to keep in mind is that like all movements who have lost their prophet and have not seen the realisation of the promises that the prophet made some will remain in the movement and stick to the fervent belief that the apocalypse and golden age is still to come

7/ other will simply be disenfranchised with the movement, but this does not mean that their anti-establishment, apocalyptic and consoriatorial mindset sinoyk disappear rather they will seek other venues to receive this information.

8/ with the deplatforming that has happened at scale there are a a large amount of extremists that are being pushed into the digital ecosystems where the violent extremists communicate.

9/ though many may perceive those who have been banned from Twitter and who have been booted off Parler are the worse of the worse, there is an entire world of ideologically motivated violent extremism that exists online that many are not aware of.

10/ presently these violent extremists are discussing ways to recruit these new members that are flooding onto their platforms. This is not the same thing as when ISIS was banned from Twitter and Facebook. The majority of ppl banned are shitposters and not real violent extremists

11/ yes they can organize themselves into mobs, yes their rhetoric is toxic, yes they do promote violence, but the maga, proud boy QAnon crowd are different beasts. Thus, the exodus that has happened is quite different and we need to acknowledged that.

12/ it's not necessarily all doom and gloom but it is a massive vulnerability and threat vector that has presented itself and tbh I am not sure what to compare it to to get baseline possibilities.