QAnon Extremist Propaganda: Using the Internet to Spread Hate

How did a group that rejects the political foundations of the U.S. grab hold of the popular imagination so quickly? And where did QAnon’s focus on hate and COVID conspiracies stem from? QAnon is a broad conspiracy theory based on the idea that democratic elite, Hollywood stars, and others are part of a satanic cannibalistic pedophile cult that must be opposed by (now former) U.S. President Donald J. Trump. Q is an anonymous person who began posting the theory online in 2017. According to QAnon, Trump is involved in a war against this satanic cabal, and the secretive “deep state” part of the government that is involved in the conspiracy. The FBI has called QAnon a domestic terror threat, and the ideas of this group have spread beyond the U.S. into Europe and other corners of the world, adapted to the local politics of various countries.