Joe Ondrak
Senior Researcher
Joe is a researcher and PhD candidate assisting in long-form investigations into disinformation and the actors behind it. He is interested in virality and memetics, the “truthiness” of false narratives, and all things to do with digital text and what it can do (for good or ill). His PhD research explores on how social media blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction when used as a venue for storytelling.
Latest Editorials by Joe Ondrak
Make QAnon a Trump Cult Again: Save Our Children Marches Lead to a Split Qmmunity
On August 22st we saw marches predominantly organized by U.S.-based Freedom For the Children happen worldwide under the “Save Our Children” banner. Though these protests may have at first glance appeared to be in support of a righteous cause—and...
Plandemic 2: Memetic Boogaloo
On May 4th 2020, the first Plandemic video appeared on various social media platforms, seemingly from nowhere, and introduced Dr. Judy Mikovits to the world. The 26 minute long video was perfectly designed to tap into doubt and uncertainty around...
Dropping Hashtags and Dodging Bans: How QAnon Used a TikTok Trick to Spread Disinformation About the Beirut Explosion
Last week, a shocking explosion at the port of Beirut that left over 130 dead and thousands more injured and displaced immediately gripped the world. Videos of the blast’s shockwave circulated quickly on social media, with the visible pressure...
Join the Q: How the Wayfair Conspiracy Got Absorbed by QAnon
A story claiming that popular e-commerce site, Wayfair, was using ‘overpriced’ cabinets recently set the Internet alight. The theory originated from a post by PrincessPeach1987 on Reddit’s conspiracy subreddit.
Do You Know Where Your Children’s Data Is? Reverse-engineering a TikTok Moral Panic
On Wednesday April 8th, Reddit user tobrown05 posted a link to a YouTube video with the title “Not news, but tbh if you have tiktok, just get rid of it.” The video has been removed by YouTube, but the contents can be at least partially inferred...
TikTok Teens, K-pop Stans, and Zoomer Online Activism: An Investigator’s Perspective
In the aftermath of Trump’s disastrously underattended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the flooding of racist or pro-police hashtags and communication channels on Twitter, the Internet was awash with proclamations that the “zoomers” (members of...
Black Lives Matter Hashtag Trend Manipulation & Memetic Warfare on Twitter
As demonstrations and protests were met with violence, erupting into civil disobedience across the globe, we can show how an effort to fracture solidarity in the Black Lives Matter online movement instead drew the ire of the online right, got...
Disinformation to Your Door: The Epoch Times Begins UK Mail Campaign
The Epoch Times may not be a household name in the UK right now, but many will be waking up across the country today to find a free newspaper bundled in with their post bearing their name. The paper’s front page headline reads “How China’s...