Q: Into the Storm

Web security company Cloudflare pulled its services from 8chan,

causing the site to go dark.

We'll be down for about ten days.

Ten days of darkness.

My campaign has been quite effective.

I was becoming increasingly convinced that Ron was behind Q.

Uh, Q has not tried to get in touch with me.

But a lot of people are asking me about Q.

They didn't ask about Q.

Interesting.

Do you connect Q to those shootings?

Not necessarily Q, but definitely the Nazi boards.

They're winking and nodding to the Nazis.

And on the other hand, they're in Congress, talking about the First Amendment.

Fred was on an all-out media blitz.

Attacking his former bosses--

The first thing they should do

is stop treating it like it's just a game.

I'm gonna put it back online.

They'll have to turn all the electricity off in the world

to stop me. It's gonna be, like--

Blowing on a dandelion, and spreading the seeds.

A.I. Narrator 1: Every 17 years, a great awakening occurs.

Rising from the Earth,

the once-dormant cicada will metamorphosize

to its final form.

A.I. Narrator 2: Hello. We are looking for

highly intelligent individuals.

To find them, we have devised a test.

There is a message hidden in this image.

Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us.

Good luck.

3301.

Filmmaker: Cicada 3301.

It's known as the most elaborate and mysterious puzzle

of the Internet Age.

It dates back to 2012.

Now, like QAnon, Cicada 3301 originated

with a post on 4chan,

and it prompted an unknown number

of internet denizens to try and solve

an increasingly difficult series of puzzles.

Let me give you an example.

If you took this first message, put it into a text-only editor,

you would see a hidden clue--

"Caesar says," followed by a seemingly random code.

And that code actually references

a famous cryptography tool called a Caesar Cipher.

Plug in the code, and it would produce a web address.

Recording: You have done well.

Filmmaker: This would eventually lead you to a phone number

that provided GPS coordinates...

Recording: Multiply all three of these numbers together

to find the next step.

Filmmaker: And this is where Cicada would transform.

Code Cracker: Howdy, folks. This one was just outside the subway...

Filmmaker: What had started as just a game on the internet

had crawled out from behind the screen,

sending participants from around the globe

out into the real world, in search of the next clue.

No one knows the true purpose of Cicada.

Was it just an amusing game?

Was it a recruitment test for a government agency?

Or a way of collecting brilliant individuals

for some secret society?

But what we do know

is that someone named Thomas Schoenberger

stepped out from behind the shadows,

claiming to be involved.

Thomas was a prolific composer and pianist.

In fact, he wrote the music you're listening to right now.

But his philosophies behind Cicada

were less about a fun game

and more geared towards altering society as a whole.

Thomas requested that rather than appear on camera,

we use a more suitable representation.

Thomas Schoenberger: Cicada instructs

the solvers to self-reflect.

An interior renaissance is

more profound than external revolution.

You know, we're only using 10 or 11% of our brains.

Imagine what it would be to, to use 30 or 40%.

Filmmaker: Cicada's unique formula

of collecting like-minded individuals

through an internet game

attracted interest from others looking for innovative ways

to awaken the masses.

It seems one of those people...

was an Anon who goes by the name Courtney Tubbs,

better known as IWillRedPillU.

She was in a chat room,

and asking me,

"What do you mean by this puzzle?"

Filmmaker: As you may recall,

Courtney Tubbs had worked as a writer for The Goldwater,

a website owned by the Watkinses.

And these conversations with Thomas,

they took place right before Q got started,

just as Cicada was creating puzzles

featuring "Alice in Wonderland"

falling down a rabbit hole,

a phrase repeated dozens of times

in the earliest QDrops.

Fredrick Brennan: Hey, how you doing?

-Filmmaker: This is my new place. -Oh great!

You know, you should've got 16Q.

It's right across the way there.

-Like, it's right there. -(laughs)

Filmmaker: In the wake of three mass shootings,

all associated with 8chan,

Fred had been trying to destroy the very monster

that he had created.

I think 8chan is a blight

on the internet, on society.

I think they are totally incapable

of running it in a way that's positive.

Filmmaker: 8chan was where the Christchurch shooter

had found an audience to celebrate

his white supremacist message.

But, there was an interesting twist here.

New Zealand had commissioned an expansive study,

and it found that the Christchurch shooter

had been radicalized not on 8chan,

but by the algorithms on YouTube and Facebook.

Crowd: Blood and soil!

Filmmaker: Which lead him to increasingly

extreme content and personalities.

Even though the report's findings

showed that 8chan wasn't quite as culpable

as originally thought,

Fred wasn't ready to let up

on his war against Ron and Jim's site.

Brennan: It affects my life in a big way

each time one of these shootings happens.

And they don't give a fuck about

how it affects me, you know?

And, look, maybe that's very narcissistic,

whatever, you know, but...

not only do they not care about me,

they don't care about all the people dying.

I just wanna be done with this,

and, look, if they shut it down,

I have no reason to go after them.

Do you feel like if he changed the name

that you would stop, or would that not be enough?

I might. I might stop, yeah. Um--

Is it mostly that 8chan ties back to you?

Yes, yes.

Filmmaker: Up until now, it seemed that Fred

had been hellbent on destroying 8chan.

But if all he really needed

was for the site's name to be changed,

that seemed like something the 8chan guys might agree to.

A crusade.

And nothing-- nothing we do is gonna be able to stop him

until he satisfies all the conditions of his mission,

so the name's gonna be changed. That's guaranteed.

And he's completely out of the picture.

Right, like a fresh start.

Ron Watkins: That's what he wants so, uh,

hopefully that works out. That'd be nice.

Filmmaker: The next day, Tom set up a meeting with Fred

to broker a peace deal.

It had been almost a year

since they'd seen each other in person.

-Brennan: It's definitely been a while. -Tom Riedel: Yeah, I know.

We saw each other three shootings ago.

-Alright, I'll let you talk. -Well, I don't know

how much we actually disagree.

Brennan: I'm happy as long as

you know, it's not 8chan anymore.

Or on that domain or on related domains.

Yeah, it has to be

put to bed because, as a brand--

-Brennan: Well, doesn't it? -Well, yeah.

If the users are gonna move

to a new site,

we have to let them know that the old one is dead,

so that they give up on it.

Thank you.

I'm just glad that 8chan's not coming back.

And, you know, whatever you name it,

my name's not on it. I have nothing to do with it.

-It's like absolution. -Yeah,

I think none of us want to be back here again,

-like, rehashing this same drama. Yeah. -Yeah. Right.

What's the new site gonna be called?

-I don't know yet. -You don't know?

-Really? -Well, there's--

it's down to like a top five.