The Other Pandemic

In his new book about the QAnon movement, the investigative journalist James Ball teases out the global network of people who have essentially given up on the notion of objective reality, from bored teenage trolls to duplicitous politicians and crazed billionaires … Ball takes to his task with a convert’s zealotry – Ethan Croft * The Times * An insightful book about the conspiracy movement compares it persuasively to a self-replicating disease … A disturbing study of the origins and resilience of an exceptionally versatile and pernicious network of paranoid digital malcontents – Rafael Behr * Guardian * This is a worthwhile, pacy and well-written book. It is an important one, too. We need to understand why people are hoodwinked by and have faith in conspiracy theories because it is happening with increasing frequency * New Scientist * Utterly fascinating – Dom Joly Ball, with this biography of the internet, takes us beyond Zuckerberg, Bezos et al into a murkier world where we discover how everything online works and who benefits from it. Fascinating, engaging and important, too – praise for The System * Observer * A fascinating exposé of the world behind your screen. Timely, often disturbing, and so important – praise for The System, Caroline Criado-Perez, author of Invisible Women This is a worthwhile, pacy and well-written book. It is an important one, too. We need to understand why people are hoodwinked by and have faith in conspiracy theories because it is happening with increasing frequency * New Scientist *

James Ball is a Fellow at the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Demos, and the author of multiple books, including Post-Truth and The System. He has worked for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, BuzzFeed, the Guardian and the Washington Post and his reporting projects have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service, the Scripps Howard Prize and the British Journalism Award for investigative reporting, among others. He lives in London.