Hide your Children from the Child-Eating Democrats

 During the pandemic, QAnon, a group of conspiracy theorists first established in the United States in November of 2017, spread through the global mainstream like wildfire. At the core of this cult lies the belief that a group of Satan-worshipping elites runs a child sex ring that controls US politics and media. This group worships Trump as some messiah that will save America from collapsing.   

The QAnon movement started on the messaging board 4chan and transitioned to a related site called 8kun. An anonymous user who calls himself “Q Clearance Patriot,” or just “Q” for short, is QAnon’s sole founder. They claim to be an American intelligence official with access to verified information, insisting that Trump is fighting a war against an elite group of cannibalistic Satan-worshipping pedophiles who have ties to the US government, media, and business. QAnon followers believe that this war will conclude with influential figures such as former presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton arrested and jailed, as well as journalists, Hollywood staff and actors, religious leaders, charities, etc. ‘Q’, however, did not provide any evidence for their bold statement.  

This anonymous individual quickly gained followers who call themselves Anons, hence the name QAnon.  

It concerns to see how rapidly this movement has spread outside of the U.S. Many people are concerned with the pandemic and are couped up inside their apartments. Due to these circumstances, it is easy for conspiracy theories and unverified information to spread, especially as people are desperate for answers. 

QAnon’s ideas spread so easily due to their stance in extending and developing pre-existing conspiracy theories, which are rapidly circulating the internet. According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) based in London, QAnon posts on social media platforms increased during March and June last year, around the time when people were in quarantine. The percentages increased by 173% on Facebook, 77.1% on Instagram, and 63.7% on Twitter.    

QAnon online posts discuss lingering conspiracy theories relating to vaccines, 5G network for telephones, anti-Semitic and white supremacist patterns, and far-right and libertarian politics.  

Followers believe that the pandemic is an elaborate plan to take away citizens’ rights and control them using 5G and vaccines. Many people accused influential figures such as Hillary Clinton, Tom Hanks, and Bill Gates of contributing to the virus’s creation.  

 

 

 

Image by Rod Millington/EPA, via Shutterstock 

An anonymous student from AISG stated that they are not an Anon, but that they believe that there is a lot of unnecessary hostility against QAnon. “They are just a group of people who support Donald Trump,” they said.  

Freshman at AISG, Claire P. had an opposing opinion and said, “I think these conspiracy theories are total nonsense.” She added, “The government should ban them from using social media so that misinformation does not spread.” To add to Claire’s thoughts, according to an Ipsos poll featured on the National Public Radio (NPR), many people cannot distinguish false COVID-19 information from facts.   

The poll shows that 80% of people are worried about COVID-19 while 40% believe a xenophobic conspiracy theory claiming that the virus was created by scientists in a Chinese lab. Despite being aware of the virus’s transmission from animals to humans, interviewees were adamant about this belief. Due to the way that this speculation targets Chinese people, many South-East Asians received a lot of unnecessary resentment, especially in the U.S. 

Yes, the virus did originate from China. Nevertheless, the U.S. has been affected so much because the government did not take precautions promptly. The first case of the virus in the United States was identified on January 20, 2020. It only took about 100 days for COVID-19 infection to reach 1 million. Fast-forwarding to the closing of 2020, it took just five days for the US to add 1 million new cases to its total of about 27 million cases. The Trump administration declared a public health emergency because of the COVID-19 outbreak on February 3, 2020. However, it was only until March 13, 2020, that Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency and invested millions of dollars in federal funding to halt the spread of the virus.   

One of the follow-up questions on the Ipsos Poll asked whether interviewees believed that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring is trying to control [US] politics and media?“ Less than half of the responders turned down the idea; 17% believed that the conspiracy is legitimate, and more than a third of the people said that they were not sure. However, 39% of people think that there is a deep-state working to sabotage Donald Trump. These ideas, which are QAnon related, have spread to other places outside of the United States, including major cities such as Berlin, London, Melbourne, and Tokyo.  

Eri, a Japanese Anon, claimed that there are about 500 hundred Anons in Japan as of January 2021. Though these followers believe in conspiracy theories regarding the US government, they have also come up with their conspiracy theories regarding the Japanese government. Eri claims that the royal family was replaced by frauds during the Meiji Restoration when Japan restored the emperor to power.   

She dauntlessly claimed that Emperor Hirohito, who held dominion from 1926 to 1989, was a CIA agent and commanded for the atomic bombs to be released upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the closing of World War II. This modest number of followers also believe that Hirohito’s heir and son, Emperor Akihito, artificially fabricated the Great East Japan Earthquake that killed almost 20,000 Japanese citizens on March 11, 2011.   

This misinformation is an equation for chaos.   

People who think that COVID-19 is no more than the mere flu will not wear masks, increasing the likelihood of the spread of COVID-19. Those who craft conspiracy theories against their governments will instigate mistrust in government officials and government authority.  

Furthermore, the FBI stated that this movement could lead to potential violence in the future since, in the past, Anons have posted violent retorts online such as death threats, assault, and kidnapping. Some have already started to physically take action, as can be seen by the Anons that took part in the Capitol riots over a month ago.