Ep. 8 — How Polaris is fighting QAnon in its use of human trafficking disinformation campaigns / Anjana Rajan, Chief Technology Officer, Polaris. | Techtopia with Chitra Ragavan podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
Ep. 8 — How Polaris is fighting QAnon in its use of human trafficking disinformation campaigns / Anjana Rajan, Chief Technology Officer, Polaris.
When tech entrepreneur Anjana Rajan joined Polaris as its Chief Technology Officer last year, she thought she was setting aside her prior focus on domestic terrorism to help Polaris with its core mission of fighting human trafficking.
But then Rajan learned the far-right conspiracy group QAnon had been making outlandish human trafficking allegations against Polaris resulting in massive Denial of Service or DDoS attacks by QAnon followers who were even making death threats against the non-profit.
Suddenly, Rajan found that her world had come full circle. Over the past year, she’s had to bring all of her national security and technology skills to bear to expand Polaris’s mission to investigate this nexus of human trafficking and domestic terrorism.
Anjana Rajan’s work and that of her Polaris team resulted in a recent report called — Countering QAnon: Understanding the Role of Human Trafficking in the Disinformation-Extremist Nexus. Rajan shares the key findings from that report and what it means for U.S. domestic security.
This is another fascinating episode in our yearlong exploration of conspiracy theories, radicalization, and domestic terrorism in the wake of the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol by armed, violent supporters of former President Donald Trump.
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Chitra Ragavan:
When tech entrepreneur Anjana Rajan, whose expertise is applying cryptography to human rights and national security issues, joined Polaris as a chief technology officer, she thought she was setting aside her focus on domestic terrorism to help Polaris with its core mission of fighting human trafficking. But then Rajan learned that the far-right conspiracy group, QAnon, had been making outlandish human trafficking allegations against Polaris, resulting in massive internet denial of service or DDoS attacks by QAnon followers, who are even making death threats against the nonprofit.
Chitra Ragavan:
Hello, everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan, and this is Techtopia. Many of you, of course, are familiar with QAnon from the January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol and on democracy by supporters of former President Donald Trump, triggering a massive domestic terrorism investigation by U.S. authorities. Suddenly, Rajan found that her world had come full circle. Over the past year, she's had to bring all of her national security and technology skills to bear to expand Polaris' mission to investigate this nexus of human trafficking and domestic terrorism.
Chitra Ragavan:
Rajan's work and that of her Polaris team resulted in a recent report called Countering QAnon: Understanding the Role of Human Trafficking in the Disinformation-Extremist Nexus. Joining me now to talk about the report and what her investigation uncovered is Anjana Rajan, who I'm happy to report is also my former colleague at Palantir. Anjana, welcome to Techtopia.
Anjana Rajan:
Thanks so much for having me, Chitra.
Chitra Ragavan:
We spoke almost exactly a year ago when you were moving cross country from California to join Polaris as the CTO, just as the COVID shutdown was starting. You were coming to Polaris with a mission to combat human trafficking. Just to give a brief definition for people of what human trafficking is, how do you define human trafficking and Polaris' mission as you knew it when you first came onboard?
Anjana Rajan:
Sure. Yeah, it's hard to believe it's been a full year. But Polaris' mission is to end sex and labor trafficking and to restore freedom to survivors. Our approach is to be survivor-centered, racial justice-focused, and technology-enabled. The way we simply describe human trafficking is it's the illicit business of exploiting vulnerable people for profit. It's $150 billion industry with 25 million victims worldwide, and that number is only going to grow unless something changes.
Chitra Ragavan:
You've had quite a whirlwind year in which clearly everything has changed,
