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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

From the very serious Global Security [globalsecurity.org]:

Until recently, the fringe conspiracy theory known as QAnon was largely an American phenomenon – a belief that U.S. President Donald Trump is secretly battling a "deep state" cabal of pedophiles that control the world.

The far-right theory has gained adherents throughout the United States as the 2020 presidential and congressional campaigns heat up. Trump has repeatedly retweeted messages from accounts that promote QAnon while more than a dozen Republican candidates running for Congress have embraced some of its tenets.

All this has sparked concerns about conspiracy-theory-driven domestic extremists that the FBI has identified as a potential domestic terror threat. But QAnon is no longer exclusively focused on U.S. politics.

Fueled by worldwide anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic, the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory has gone global, with adherents popping up in at least 71 countries, according to QAnon researcher Marc-André Argentino.

Non-American non-Republicans? Is this even possible?

"There has been massive growth," said Argentino, a Ph.D. candidate at Canada's Concordia University and an associate at the Global Network on Extremism & Technology.

Conspiracy theories thrive in times of crisis, experts say. With anxious people around the world trying to make sense of the killer pandemic as leaders struggle to deal with it, QAnon has found an enthusiastic audience with the promise of salvation from tyranny at the end of a struggle dubbed "The Storm."

Outside the U.S., Germany, though spared the worst of the pandemic, has become home to the largest number of QAnon followers overseas, according to Argentino. One German QAnon channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram boasts 120,000 members.

In the past month, the biggest growth in QAnon's international followers has come from Brazil, a pandemic hotspot where the virus has killed more than 100,000 people.

Meanwhile, in the USA, QAnon is poised to go mainstream, as in House of Representatives!

Georgia businesswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory, won a Republican primary race Tuesday for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is expected to win the seat in November in her heavily Republican congressional district.

Former national security advisor Michael Flynn appeared in a July 4 video reciting a popular QAnon slogan: "Where we go one, we go all." While Trump has not explicitly endorsed the movement, he enjoys broad support from QAnon followers who have attended his rallies wearing QAnon T-shirts.

A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether Trump welcomes their support.

Of course they did not respond! You know what that means!

In recent weeks, both Facebook and Twitter have taken down QAnon accounts for running afoul of their policies and standards. Further actions are expected.

But experts doubt the disciplinary measures will banish the movement. For one, the conspiracy theory is protected speech and social media companies can't simply label QAnon under their "dangerous group" category. Second, banning QAnon followers from Facebook and Twitter would only reinforce their belief that they're engaged in an information war against media elites and others in the deep state, according to experts.

"The crackdown only plays into their conspiratorial beliefs," Grisham said.

"If you strike me down, I will only become more powerful!" Well, what kind of chance do we have then? Ridicule seems to be the only weapon, but we are talking Facebook here, so not likely to work, either. Bleach injections?

Original Submission