QAnon is supposed to be a far-right movement that has achieved widespread reach on online platforms, especially in the United States, writes Sky News.
What is QAnon?
The so-called QAnon movement, at first glance, according to many researchers, appears to be a conspiracy theory that serves in favor of President Donald Trump, in relation to his Democratic political opponents, but also within his own party - the Republicans.
According to Sky News' elaboration of this phenomenon, supporters of this conspiracy theory (QAnon) believe that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against former US presidential candidate Hilary Clinton and liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, both of whom, according to QAnon, have been hated figures for many years by right-wing American politicians and are part of the "Evil Global Cabal" group of powerful people.
According to QAnon, Donald Trump is expected to speak in a presentation about the preparations for war and the events that will occur soon, where the president himself will overthrow this group of "demonic" people by imprisoning them.
Proponents draw attention to news, historical facts, and numerology in order to develop their conclusions.
In October 2017, an anonymous user posted a series of posts on online forums such as "4chan" and later on "8chan".
This user went by the handle “Q,” which claimed to possess a level of US security clearance known as “Q clearance.” These messages became known as “Q drops,” often written in cryptic language, peppered with slogans, sloganeering, and pro-Trump themes.
But how did social media react to these posting campaigns?
Reddit has blocked the community /r/QAnon for the reason that they have incited threats.
Twitter, on the other hand, has announced that it has taken action against so-called "QAnon activity" because it can cause widespread harm to the community. The social network announced that more than 7 accounts involved in QAnon have been removed from the platform for failing to comply with the company's rules against SPAM and manipulation.
Twitter has also added that it will no longer allow content and accounts associated with QAnon from its trending or recommended content sections, and URLs associated with it will be blocked from distribution on the platform.
Similar problems have also been faced by the online video streaming channel YouTube. Despite this, YouTube remains a popular platform for accounts discussing cryptic messages related to QAnon conspiracy theories, with some reaching hundreds or thousands of viewers per video.
But what does Donald Trump know about this?
Supporters say he knows about and has responded to tweets that have spread QAnon messages on Twitter, even though there is ample evidence that the president does not verify the messages written on his account.
In the presidential race, during a Trump rally in Cincinnati last August, a rally moderator encouraged the crowd by using the QAnon motto “Where one goes, we all go.” But he later denied that the motto referred to this conspiracy theory.
Has the FBI managed to identify this so-called movement as a terror threat within the US?
Yes, it has. In the FBI bulletin from their Phoenix office published by YahooNews, QAnon and other conspiracy theories pushed by domestic extremists were specifically mentioned as a terror threat in the US. In this FBI publication, it is also stated that this threat from these extremist groups is likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.