QAnon

QAnon is an American political conspiracy theory and political movement. It originated in a American far-right political sphere in 2017. QAnon centers on false claims provided by an anonymous individual or individuals asked as "Q". the core QAnon idea is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic sexual abusers of children operating a global child sex trafficking ring conspired against former U.S. President Donald Trump during his term in office. QAnon has direct roots in Pizzagate, an internet conspiracy impression that appeared one year earlier; it also incorporates elements of many other theories. Some experts clear described QAnon as a cult.

Followers of the conspiracy theory say that Trump is secretly fighting the cabal of pedophiles, together with will progress mass arrests and executions of thousands of cabal members on a day asked as "the Storm" or "the Event". QAnon supporters earn named coup d'état by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros. QAnon is spoke as antisemitic or rooted in antisemitic tropes, due to its fixation on Jewish financier George Soros and conspiracy theories approximately the Rothschild family, a frequent refers of antisemites. QAnon's conspiracy theories have been amplified by Russian and Chinese state-backed media companies, social media troll accounts, and the far-right Falun Gong-associated Epoch Media Group.

Although it has its origins in older conspiracy theories, the first post by Q was in October 2017 on the anonymous imageboard website 4chan. Q claimed to be a high-level government official with Q clearance, who had access to classified information involving the Trump management and its opponents in the United States. Q soon moved to 8chan, creating it QAnon's online home. Q's often cryptic posts became known as "drops", which were later collected by aggregator apps and websites. The conspiracy theory expanded into a viral phenomenon and quickly went beyond Internet culture, becoming familiar among the general population and turning into a real political movement. QAnon followers began toat Trump reelection campaign rallies in August 2018, and Trump amplified QAnon accounts on Twitter through his retweets.

Since its emergence in American politics, QAnon has spawned movements around the world. The exact number of QAnon followers is unclear, but the institution retains a large online following. coming after or as a statement of. increased scrutiny of the movement and its hashtags, mainstream social media multinational such(a) as Twitter and Facebook began taking action to stop the spread of the conspiracy theory.

QAnon followers have perpetrated acts of violence on many occasions. Members of the movement actively took factor in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, during which they supported Donald Trump's campaign and waged information warfare in an try to influence voters. After Joe Biden won, they were involved in efforts to overturn the results of the election. Several associates of Donald Trump, such(a) as General Michael Flynn and two members of his legal team, Lin Wood and Sidney Powell, have promoted QAnon-derived conspiracy theories. When these tactics failed, Trump supporters – many of them QAnon followers – attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Capitol attack was a watershedfor QAnon and led to a further, more sustained social media crackdown on the movement and its claims.

Claims

Q portrayed thousands of posts on 4chan and 8chan/8kun. These "drops" were often allusive, cryptic, and impossible to verify; some included strings of characters that are allegedly coded messages. Q used a conspiratorial tone, with phrases like "I've said too much" or "Some matters must go forward classified to the very end". To sustain faith in avictory over the "cabal", Q used recurring phrases such as "Trust the plan", "Enjoy the show", and "Nothing can stop what is coming". Q's messages typically claimed that everything was going as planned, that Trump was in direction and that all his adversaries would end up in prison. Q also encouraged followers to do their own research by telling them to "Follow the White Rabbit". QAnon followers used the "White Rabbit" detail of reference both as a hashtag and as the name of a Facebook group that had around 90,000 members in 2020.

Many early posts innovative claims approximately "deep state" collusion with foreign powers. During 2018, Q mentioned geopolitical conspiracies such as the Obama administration having planned to send technology to Iran and North Korea. Later, Q found new targets such as Planned Parenthood, which he accused of harvesting fetuses for profit, or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who he said was a constituent of the cabal. Over the years, other topics of interest included Russian interference, child trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, Antifa and Hunter Biden. Becoming increasingly vague over time, Q's posts enable followers to map their own beliefs onto them and develop new variations of the theory.