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January 9, 2020

Paul Krugman's strange tweets about his hacked computer

By Andrea Widburg

Just today, I was speaking with a friend about QAnon.  Let me say immediately that I don't have an opinion about QAnon, so it's no use using the comments to argue one way or another on the issue.  This post is not substantively about QAnon's existence, purpose, or meaning.  Nevertheless, the QAnon discussion is still relevant to this post.

For those unfamiliar with QAnon, Q is a person (or maybe a group of people) who puts up cryptic messages on online bulletin boards.  (I use the plural "boards" because a board will frequently be attacked, and Q will relocate to another.)  Some people believe that Q is a highly connected person who has deep knowledge about worldwide trends.  Others believe that Q is the equivalent of a good fortune-teller, the one who makes vague, oracular statements to which the listener attaches actual meaning.  As I said, I'm agnostic.  Leftists consider QAnon an evil right-wing hoax and conspiracy theory.

One thing I did learn from my conversation is that Q contends that a major connection linking the world's power players is pedophilia.  One doesn't need to be a conspiracy theorist to notice from recent news stories that people in power often use that power to abuse children.  From Jeffrey Epstein (did he or didn't he kill himself?) to the endless stories about pedophiles in Hollywood to the appalling and real pedophilia scandal in England, people who believe themselves free from ordinary rules and morality do very bad things.

When I returned home from meeting with my friend and talking about QAnon, I opened my computer, went to Twitter, and saw two since-deleted tweets from Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist who, from his perch at the New York Times, opined that the stock market would never recover from Trump's election.  The first tweet read:

Well, I’m on the phone with my computer security service, and as I understand it someone compromised my IP address and is using it to download child pornography. I might just be a random target. But this could be an attempt to Qanon me. It’s an ugly world out there.

The second tweet stated:

The Times is now on the case.

Interestingly, even though Krugman claimed to have been the victim of an incredibly serious crime, and suspected that QAnon might have been framing him, he mentioned in his first tweet only that he talked to his computer security service and in his second tweet only that the Times was on the case.

Several hours later, Krugman tweeted out that it was all a false alarm:

It’s nice that the Times was able to clear Krugman of any connection to a vile, immoral practice.  Still, it would have been interesting to see if a call to the FBI would have yielded the same result in the same time frame.  And all of us are left to wonder why Krugman made this information public in the first place.

And did Krugman just suggest that QAnon is real?

Just today, I was speaking with a friend about QAnon.  Let me say immediately that I don't have an opinion about QAnon, so it's no use using the comments to argue one way or another on the issue.  This post is not substantively about QAnon's existence, purpose, or meaning.  Nevertheless, the QAnon discussion is still relevant to this post.

For those unfamiliar with QAnon, Q is a person (or maybe a group of people) who puts up cryptic messages on online bulletin boards.  (I use the plural "boards" because a board will frequently be attacked, and Q will relocate to another.)  Some people believe that Q is a highly connected person who has deep knowledge about worldwide trends.  Others believe that Q is the equivalent of a good fortune-teller, the one who makes vague, oracular statements to which the listener attaches actual meaning.  As I said, I'm agnostic.  Leftists consider QAnon an evil right-wing hoax and conspiracy theory.

One thing I did learn from my conversation is that Q contends that a major connection linking the world's power players is pedophilia.  One doesn't need to be a conspiracy theorist to notice from recent news stories that people in power often use that power to abuse children.  From Jeffrey Epstein (did he or didn't he kill himself?) to the endless stories about pedophiles in Hollywood to the appalling and real pedophilia scandal in England, people who believe themselves free from ordinary rules and morality do very bad things.

When I returned home from meeting with my friend and talking about QAnon, I opened my computer, went to Twitter, and saw two since-deleted tweets from Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist who, from his perch at the New York Times, opined that the stock market would never recover from Trump's election.  The first tweet read:

Well, I’m on the phone with my computer security service, and as I understand it someone compromised my IP address and is using it to download child pornography. I might just be a random target. But this could be an attempt to Qanon me. It’s an ugly world out there.

The second tweet stated:

The Times is now on the case.

Interestingly, even though Krugman claimed to have been the victim of an incredibly serious crime, and suspected that QAnon might have been framing him, he mentioned in his first tweet only that he talked to his computer security service and in his second tweet only that the Times was on the case.

Several hours later, Krugman tweeted out that it was all a false alarm:

It’s nice that the Times was able to clear Krugman of any connection to a vile, immoral practice.  Still, it would have been interesting to see if a call to the FBI would have yielded the same result in the same time frame.  And all of us are left to wonder why Krugman made this information public in the first place.

And did Krugman just suggest that QAnon is real?