It's hard to know how many QAnon believers there are

Seems like everyone – officials, regular people and media types alike – is talking about QAnon. But how many people really believe the outlandish and utterly baseless idea that Satan-worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles are running the world?

Polls are among the ways people are trying to figure out how widespread this set of beliefs is, and James Shanahan, dean of the Media School at Indiana University, summarizes the findings of several recent ones. But Shanahan, who studies how false ideas spread online, cautions that polls aren’t always the best way to judge the public’s thinking.

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