(September 28, 2020 at 11:30 pm)Eleven Wrote: I keep seeing atheists on Reddit getting upset over QAnon, so I have decided to look into what it is.
Quote:QAnon[a] (/ˌkjuːəˈnɒn/) is a far-right conspiracy theory[b] alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling them,[2] leading to a "day of reckoning" involving the mass arrest of journalists and politicians.[3] No part of the theory is based on fact.[4][5][6][7]
Although preceded by similar viral conspiracies such as Pizzagate,[8] the theory proper began with an October 2017 post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by "Q", who was presumably an American individual[9] but most likely has become a group of people.[10][11] Q claimed to have access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the United States. NBC News found that three people took the original Q post and expanded it across multiple media platforms to build internet followings for profit. QAnon was preceded by several similar anonymous 4chan posters, such as FBIAnon, HLIAnon (High-Level Insider), CIAAnon, and WH Insider Anon.[12]
Q has accused many liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking officials of being members of the cabal. Q also claimed that Trump feigned conspiracy with Russians to enlist Robert Mueller to join him in exposing the ring and preventing a coup d'état by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros.[13][14][15] "Q" is a reference to the Q clearance used by the U.S. Department of Energy. QAnon believers commonly tag their social media posts with the hashtag #WWG1WGA, signifying the motto "Where We Go One, We Go All".
QAnon adherents began appearing at Trump reelection campaign rallies in August 2018.[16] TV and radio personality Michael "Lionel" Lebron, a promoter of the theory, was granted a photo opportunity with Trump in the Oval Office in August 2018.[17] Bill Mitchell, a broadcaster who promotes QAnon, attended a White House "social media summit" in July 2019.[18][19] At an August 2019 rally, a man warming up the crowd before Trump spoke used the QAnon motto "where we go one, we go all", later denying that it was a QAnon reference. This occurred hours after the publication of a report that the FBI had determined QAnon to be a potential source of domestic terrorism, the first time the agency had so rated a fringe conspiracy theory.[20][21] According to analysis conducted by Media Matters, as of August 2020, Trump had amplified QAnon messaging at least 216 times by retweeting or mentioning 129 QAnon-affiliated Twitter accounts, sometimes multiple times a day.[22][23]
Into 2020, the number of QAnon adherents was unclear, but they had a large presence on social media, particularly Twitter. In June 2020, Q exhorted followers to take a "digital soldiers oath", and many did, using the Twitter hashtag #TakeTheOath.[24] In July 2020, Twitter banned thousands of QAnon-affiliated accounts and changed its algorithms to reduce the theory's spread.[25] A Facebook internal analysis reported in August found millions of followers across thousands of groups and pages; Facebook acted to remove and restrict QAnon activity later that month.[26][27] Followers had also migrated to dedicated message boards such as EndChan and 8kun, where they organized to wage information warfare to influence the 2020 elections.[28]
Well, there you have it. QAnon is a group of mental wackjobs.
L Ron Hubbard started Scientology decades ago. Back when I was a kid in the 70s bullshit like space aliens and crop circles were sold on bullshit shows like "In Search Of". And even today there are ads on TV for "psychics".
