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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Continuing controversy and recriminations from 8chan, and the true identity of Q.
From the pages of The Daily Dot [dailydot.com]:

Over the weekend, a rumor started to make the rounds on Twitter and among QAnon watchers, which seemed to blow a lid on a long-simmering mystery.

It said that the mysterious poster who makes the Q drops, the cryptic messages posted on message board 8kun that give the movement its direction, had been unmasked and revealed to all. And the poster was none other than 8kun’s owner, Jim Watkins. Previously the owner of 8kun forerunner 8chan, Watkins had already given congressional testimony [theverge.com] wearing a QAnon pin and started a political SuperPAC devoted to boosting QAnon-friendly candidates.

There was already speculation that Q and Watkins were linked, as when 8chan went down in August 2019, the Q poster didn’t make their drops somewhere else, instead waiting around for months while 8chan found a new service provider and rebranded as 8kun.

Speculation. And now there is more of it.

But while it would make sense for Watkins to be responsible for Q’s posts, there’s been no conclusive proof of it, and both Jim Watkins and his son Ron, who writes the code for 8kun, deny having any link [playboy.com] or knowledge of who Q is, even as speculation has persisted for years they were behind it.

So what was it that changed to spark this newest rumor?

Anti-Q activists discovered that 8kun.top has the same IP address as QMap.pub, the most popular aggregator of QAnon’s drops, along with the home of the “QAnon Prayer Wall.” The term “QMap” dates to an early Q drop from November 2017 that states “QMAP 1/2 confirmed. This is the key.” Q drop aggregators are critical in the movement, since Q promoters generally don’t want followers navigating a racist and difficult-to-read site like 8chan for Q content. So these sites serve as a way to let followers know that a Q drop was made and confirm that it’s real by linking back to the drop on 8kun.

And with tens of thousands of people using it at any given moment, QMap is the most popular of the aggregator sites. It was originally hosted by Amazon Web Services, but for whatever reason, at some point in the last few months (it’s not clear when), it switched to internet security firm VanwaTech. If this name is familiar to Q watchers, it’s because it’s the same firm that was revealed in October to be the new security provider for 8kun.

Of course, there is no information to be found here, this is about a conspiracy theory, after all. But some of the accusations are interesting. Seems to be a fight between co-founders of 8chan.

Leading the charge in pointing out the connection between 8kun and QMap is former 8chan founder turned Watkins foe, Fredrick Brennan. Since selling the site to Watkins in 2016, Brennan has been embroiled in a bitter feud with Watkins, culminating in Watkins attempting to use “cyberlibel” laws in the Philippines (where both were based) to put Brennan in prison for insulting him on Twitter. Since then, Brennan was forced to return to the U.S. to avoid prosecution.

Ha! Conspiracy in the Phillipines? About the American President? McArthur has left the island, but he shall return, with Elvis!

But why does it matter? And how does it prove or not prove that Jim Watkins (who blocked the writer of this story on Twitter) runs both sites, and has been making Q drops?

The short answer is it doesn’t prove Jim Watkins is Q, despite people shouting that online all week.

saw fr*derick br*nnan's tweet and tried it myself and yeah, jim watkins is definitely Q which means that Qanon is verifiably led by a dude running a site that was originally made as a haven for child pornographers. pic.twitter.com/3nNMRJ9ax2

— #𝟏 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐟 𝐅𝐚𝐧 (@lumpenfreude)
August 25, 2020

And nobody still knows for sure who Q is other than the actual Q poster. But getting to the bottom of what the link between 8kun and QMap actually means for the Q movement touches on so many of the most salient points about the QAnon phenomenon: mystery, blind belief, complex technical facets, and grift.

As deepthroat said, follow the money.

Original Submission