QAnon Conspiracy Theories: Investigating a Viral Meme

What does this logo look like to you?

It might not look like
much at first glance

but it did cause quite a stir online.

This logo was found on the side
of a mobile COVID-19 testing truck.

The photo is real and so is the logo.

A viral post on Facebook claim
that this logo represents Anubis,

the ancient Egyptian God
of death and the afterlife.

The rumors circulated
among groups tied to QAnon,

the once fringe conspiracy theory that
has made its way into the mainstream.

QAnon members said the logo revealed
a deep state plot against Americans.

They shared fears that these testing
trucks were up to something nefarious.

Of course it turns out the logo
is actually an aardvark.

An aardvark?

Yes, an aardvark, which I learned,

is an African mammal who is
nocturnal and feeds largely on bugs.

Sarah Spencer, a journalist
with factcheck.org,

ventured down the virtual rabbit hole
to figure out where this logo came from

and how it ended up linked
to an Egyptian death deity.

Sarah: We initially were presented
with this meme on Facebook.

Why does COVID-19 testing facility
have a logo of Anubis, the God of death?

The first step would be to do just
a basic reverse image search.

It can give you a starting off point

and give you a sense of maybe
how widespread something is.

You can see obviously where the person
who put together this meme shows,

to select in red, indicating what
they think is interesting about it.

That will often skew an image search

but you can also click and download,

and then put it into any
photo editing software.

In a picture like this,
I would crop it like that,

so that you get part of an actual picture.

Then you can plug that picture

into your standard reverse image search.

Here, in TinEye, you can
select your cropped version.

In TinEye, unlike in Google,

you can sort by newest to oldest.

So in this case, it was used in
a Philadelphia business journal -

a story about this area business
that had started retooling its trucks

to be used as mobile testing
units during COVID-19.

They identify the name of the
company as Aardvark Mobile.

So then just a simple,
very simple internet search,

a pretty obvious first result is
the Aardvark Mobile Tours website

that shares the same logo
that you see on the truck.

You see they have
a mobile health care unit.

That looks pretty close.

Sarah: Very similar setup,
yeah, very similar setup.

One thing that TinEye
is really good at is finding

where images first
started showing up online.

One of its first iterations
showed up on 8KUN,

which is a message board that often
is home to conspiracy theorists threads.

It's where a lot of conspiracy theories
develop and then bubble up

before they start showing up
on Facebook and Twitter.

Hari: So your tip to a general reader -

if they see an image that
makes these kinds of claims,

what's the 1st thing they should
have in the back of their mind?

What's the 1st thing they should do?

If you're scrolling through your social
media, you see something

that really speaks to you
and really feels right,

and you think, yes, that really
solidifies what I think.

That should be a warning to you
that it might be questionable.

Often you'll find that the facts
that are included in memes

that feel the most right,
are actually wrong.

The world feels scary right now

and the future feels unknown.

Reading something on the internet
and assuming the worst,

seems almost reasonable.

But as Sarah said, if it feels right,

you might wanna check first.

And if something requires
an elaborate explanation,

maybe there's a simpler answer.

Sometimes a logo is just a logo.

Sometimes an aardvark is just an aardvark.

And why, by the way, is this truck
company named after an aardvark?

The owner of Aardvark
Tours chose the name Aardvark

because it starts with
AA and way back when,

when there were yellow
pages in the phone book.

Sure, we had AA Carpet
Cleaning, AAA Carpet Cleaning.

And aardvark starts with two A's.

So, that's how that came to be.

Until next time.

Don't spread fake news. Keep it real.

I'm Hari Sreenivasan,
and this is Take on Fake.

Thanks for watching.

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