Who is behind the QAnon conspiracy Twitter account?
On September 11, 2020, Logically identified the developer of a Q drop site. The person who ran Qmap.pub, a popular site for Q drops, was identified as a New Jersey man who worked in cybersecurity at Citigroup.
While the report that implicated Gelinas believes he isn’t Q nor did he have anything to do with Q’s origins (they believe the owner of 8kun, Jim Watkins, is Q), his involvement gives some insight into how Q isn’t going down quietly, despite bans on social media.
Jason Gelinas is the “developer and mouthpiece” of this Q site according to Logically.ai, the company that tracked him down. Gelinas describes the QAnon movement as a “patriotic movement to save the country”. Also, although it seems like he scrubbed himself from the internet (he took his LinkedIn down and doesn’t appear to have a Twitter account), his work lives on.
Qmap is still down, but QAnon is still going strong. Other Q drop sites like qposts.online and QAgg News (featuring a countdown to the U.S. election on its forum). They also used to have thousands of Twitter accounts before the social media platform banned 7,000 QAnon accounts and limited 150,000 more in July per NBC News.
Although QAnon may seem to have been gone, they’re still on Twitter. Plus, they’re going global. Here’s what we know about how Q is coming back on Twitter, and growing globally & in the streets.
QAnon isn’t just stateside anymore
The Guardian reported that a forum poster on the QAnon Casualties subreddit was from the UK, and disturbed about how Q was taking hold there. “My mum and grandma have shown me some, quite frankly, terrifying hard-right Facebook posts, calling Black Lives Matter Marxist pedophiles, typical QAnon stuff, however not even advertised as Q,” he posted.
While most posters on the subreddit are American (one was disturbed by a rising number of Nazi sympathizers in his rural area, connecting it to Q), the far-right conspiracy movement is moving to Europe, where far-right movements have been on the rise for the last several years.
While QAnon is being banned, if not scrutinized by the social media platform, the hashtag Save Our Children seems to have replaced it. Peddling conspiracies similar to Q, the groups have a far-right bent to them.
The mainstream media have continually bleated on about #brexit #Covid_19 so we will continue to shout about the #abuse #exploitation and #trafficking that our children suffer every single day.
HELP US RAISE THE #AWARENESS pic.twitter.com/zxV5mHK5Fn— Saveourchildrenuk (@socuk2020) September 22, 2020
Save Our Children comes to the UK
Save Our Children was a popular hashtag that emerged when the Wayfair conspiracy broke. A popular Q conspiracy is that the news media & global elite are covering up massive sex trafficking rings that abuse children and sacrifice them to Satan.
Save Our Children was previously Save the Children. However, the group caught on that the hashtag was from a charity group with ties to the Clinton Foundation, which QAnon implicated in the vast conspiracy to abuse children. Therefore, they changed it to Save Our Children to differentiate themselves.
It began as a U.S. movement, specifically heralding U.S. President Donald Trump as the country’s savior from an abusive elite. However, it’s moved abroad, embedding itself into UK conspiracies about Brexit & the NHS, and global concerns about 5G and vaccines.
From online to the streets
Save Our Children is hosting numerous rallies in the U.S. and now abroad. A “freedom rally” in Trafalgar Square was held to protest this elite cabal conspiracy. According to The Guardian, it was attended by Q supporters, but also by people who supported fascism, as evidenced by someone flying a defunct organization, the British Union of Fascists flag.
In Germany, people at a “QAnon Rally” could be seen from the “Reichsbürger far-right movement, which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German state,” The Guardian reported. Similar far-right groups were seen at protests in Scandinavia.
Unholy alliance between Q & fascists?
Gregory Stanton, president of the watchdog group Genocide Watch, claims that QAnon is a repackaging of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 1902 pamphlet that claimed there was a global conspiracy of elite people, run by Jews, that used the blood of children in matzo balls. The pamphlet was used decades later in Hitler’s rise to power and Nazi propaganda.
Stanton connects similarities between the Protocols conspiracy and QAnon: both conspiracies believe the elite are attacking children and both point to big government and liberal policies masquerading the conspiracy. Both also point to saviors who can protect their children.
“Many people are perplexed at how any rational person could fall for such an irrational conspiracy theory. But modern social science shows that people in groups don’t always think rationally. They respond to fear and terror. They blame their misfortunes on scapegoats. They support narcissistic demagogues they hope will rescue them.”
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Is Q dangerous? Is there a link between Q and far-right groups that promote fascism and genocide? Q believers may argue that it’s spin from the mainstream media to discredit them. Indeed, the last Q drop (September 22) was a Business Insider article about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to QAnon. The caption read “Have you ever witnessed a full-blown international mainstream media constant [barrage] [counter]attack re: a ‘conspiracy’? Simple logic answers the question.”
