{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T23:16:06Z","timestamp":1780096566057,"version":"3.54.0"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,18]],"date-time":"2023-10-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1697587200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/pages\/standard-publication-reuse-rights"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,30]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n               <jats:p>A series of social media posts on 4chan then 8chan, signed under the pseudonym \u2018Q\u2019, started a movement known as QAnon, which led some of its most radical supporters to violent and illegal actions. To identify the person(s) behind Q, we evaluate the coincidence between the linguistic properties of the texts written by Q and to those written by a list of suspects provided by journalistic investigation. To identify the authors of these posts, serious challenges have to be addressed. The \u2018Q drops\u2019 are very short texts, written in a way that constitute a sort of literary genre in itself, with very peculiar features of style. These texts might have been written by different authors, whose other writings are often hard to find. After an online ethnography of the movement, necessary to collect enough material written by these thirteen potential authors, we use supervised machine learning to build stylistic profiles for each of them. We then performed a \u2018rolling analysis\u2019, looking repeatedly through a moving window for parts of Q\u2019s writings matching our profiles. We conclude that two different individuals, Paul F. and Ron W., are the closest match to Q\u2019s linguistic signature, and they could have successively written Q\u2019s texts. These potential authors are not high-ranked personality from the US administration, but rather social media activists.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/llc\/fqad061","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,19]],"date-time":"2023-10-19T12:23:23Z","timestamp":1697718203000},"page":"1418-1430","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["Who could be behind QAnon? Authorship attribution with supervised machine-learning"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"38","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1951-6942","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Florian","family":"Cafiero","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Sciences Po, m\u00e9dialab , 27 Rue Saint Guillaume , France"},{"name":"\u00c9cole Nationale des Chartes, Universit\u00e9 Paris, Sciences & Lettres , 65 rue de Richelieu , France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0385-7037","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jean-Baptiste","family":"Camps","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"\u00c9cole Nationale des Chartes, Universit\u00e9 Paris, Sciences & Lettres , 65 rue de Richelieu , France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,10,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B1","author":"Amour","year":"2021"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"119","DOI":"10.1145\/1461928.1461959","article-title":"Automatically Profiling the Author of an Anonymous Text\u2019,","volume":"52","author":"Argamon","year":"2009","journal-title":"Communications of the ACM"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B3","first-page":"65","article-title":"Variations on a Theme? Comparing 4chan, 8kun, and Other Chans\u2019 Far-right \u201c\\Pol\u201d Boards\u2019,","volume":"15","author":"Baele","year":"2021","journal-title":"Perspectives on Terrorism"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B4","author":"Benz\u00e9cri","year":"1973"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"789","DOI":"10.1017\/S1351324917000249","article-title":"Syntactic Methods for Topic-independent Authorship Attribution\u2019,","volume":"23","author":"Bj\u00f6rklund","year":"2017","journal-title":"Natural Language Engineering"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"eaax5489","DOI":"10.1126\/sciadv.aax5489","article-title":"Why Moli\u00e8re Most Likely Did Write His Plays\u2019,","volume":"5","author":"Cafiero","year":"2019","journal-title":"Science Advances"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B7","first-page":"377","author":"Cafiero","year":"2021"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B8","volume-title":"Affaires de Style","author":"Cafiero","year":"2022"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B9","volume-title":"Supervised Stylometry: SuperStyl","author":"Camps","year":"2021"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B10","first-page":"1","article-title":"Who\u2019s at the Keyboard? Authorship Attribution in Digital Evidence Investigations\u2019,","volume":"4","author":"Chaski","year":"2005","journal-title":"International Journal of Digital Evidence"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B11","volume-title":"Pratiquer une Recherche Int\u00e8gre et Responsable: Guide","author":"Comit\u00e9 d\u2019\u00e9thique du CNRS","year":"2017"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"431","DOI":"10.1093\/applin\/25.4.431","article-title":"Author Identification, Idiolect, and Linguistic Uniqueness\u2019,","volume":"25","author":"Coulthard","year":"2004","journal-title":"Applied Linguistics"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B13","author":"De Vel","year":"2001"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"109","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1023824908771","article-title":"Authorship Attribution with Support Vector Machines\u2019,","volume":"19","author":"Diederich","year":"2003","journal-title":"Applied Intelligence"},{"key":"2023120103530725100_fqad061-B15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"167","DOI":"10.1093\/llc\/fqt066","article-title":"Does Size Matter? 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