Appeal
Experts have classified QAnon's appeal as comparable to those of religious cults. According to an expert in online conspiracy, Renee DiResta, QAnon's pattern of enticement is similar to that of cults in the pre-Internet era where, as the targeted person was led deeper and deeper into the group's secrets, they become increasingly isolated from friends and family outside the cult. Online support groups developed for those whose loved ones were drawn into QAnon, notably the subreddit r/QAnonCasualties, which grew from 3,500 participants in June 2020 to 28,000 by October. In the Internet age, QAnon virtual communities have little "real world" connection with each other, but online they can number in the tens of thousands. Rachel Bernstein, an expert on cults who specializes in recovery therapy, said, "What a movement such as QAnon has going for it, and why it will catch on like wildfire, is that it makes people feel connected to something important that other people don't yet know about. ... All cults will provide this feeling of being special." There is no self-correction process within the group, since the self-reinforcing true followers are immune to correction, fact-checking, or counter-speech, which is drowned out by the cult's groupthink. QAnon's cultish quality has led to its characterization as a possible emerging religious movement. It has also been called a syncretic movement.
Travis View, a researcher who studies QAnon, says that it is as addictive as a video game, and offers the "player" the possibility of being involved in something of world-historical importance. According to View, "You can sit at your computer and search for information and then post about what you find, and Q basically promises that through this process, you are going to radically change the country, institute this incredible, almost bloodless revolution, and then be part of this historical movement that will be written about for generations." View compares this to mundane political involvement in which one's efforts might help to get a state legislator elected. QAnon, says View, competes not in the marketplace of ideas, but in the marketplace of realities. The belief in "The Plan" that Q alleged was in place to defeat the deep state and the cabal boosted the confidence of QAnon followers, who were told that things were happening behind the scenes and that victory would inevitably follow if they trusted Trump and the secret plan. QAnon believers try to solve riddles presented in Q's posts by connecting them to Trump speeches and tweets and other sources. The New Yorker has likened QAnon to "a form of interactive role-playing". Some followers used a "Q clock" consisting of a wheel of concentric dials to decode clues based on the timing of Q's posts and Trump's tweets.
Conspiracy theories have tended to make headway in times of societal uncertainty, and help people to feel more in control in the face of disturbing information. American sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer says he "find[s] QAnon consistent with many other extremist religiopolitical movements ... including those that have arisen in response to the recent global crises of mass migration, economic globalization, and now a global pandemic". Survey data showed in late 2020 that a quarter of those who knew about QAnon thought there was some truth to it. In a conspiracy theory environment, primary institutions of society that once served as trusted impartial authorities are easily rejected if they contradict the conspiracy theory, making it very difficult to counter the thinking of QAnon followers.
Disillusionment
Travis View says:
People in the QAnon community often talk about alienation from family and friends. ... Though they typically talk about how Q frayed their relationships on private Facebook groups. But they think these issues are temporary and primarily the fault of others. They often comfort themselves by imagining that there will be a moment of vindication sometime in the near future which will prove their beliefs right. They imagine that after this happens, not only will their relationships be restored, but people will turn to them as leaders who understand what's going on better than the rest of us.
Disillusionment can also come from the failure of the theories' predictions. Q predicted Republican success in the 2018 US midterm elections and claimed that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was involved in secret work for Trump and that despite outward tension, the two were allies. When Democrats made significant gains and Trump fired Sessions, many in the Q community were disillusioned. Further disillusionment came when a predicted December 5 mass arrest and imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay detention camp of Trump's enemies did not occur, nor did the dismissal of charges against Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn. For some, these failures began the process of separation from the QAnon cult, while others urged direct action in the form of an insurrection against the government. Psychologist Robert Lifton said such a response to a failed prophecy is not unusual: apocalyptic cults such as Heaven's Gate, the People's Temple, the Manson Family, and Aum Shinrikyo resorted to mass suicide or mass murder when their expectations for revelations or the fulfillment of their prophecies did not materialize. Lifton called this "forcing the end". View echoed the concern that disillusioned QAnon followers might take matters into their own hands as Pizzagate follower Edgar Maddison Welch did in 2016, Matthew Phillip Wright did at Hoover Dam in 2018, and Anthony Comello did in 2019, when he murdered Mafia boss Frank Cali, believing himself to be under Trump's protection.
Liz Crokin, a believer in QAnon who in 2018 asserted that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death and is now Q, said in February 2019 that she was losing patience waiting for Trump to arrest the supposed members of the child sex ring, and warned that people might conduct "vigilante justice" if he took too long. Other followers have adopted the Kennedy conspiracy theory, asserting that a Pittsburgh man named Vincent Fusca is Kennedy in disguise and would be Trump's 2020 running mate. In November 2021, hundreds gathered in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the site of President Kennedy's assassination, believing they would witness the return of both Kennedys. Attendees expected the event would herald Trump's reinstatement as president, that Trump would step down to allow Kennedy, Jr. to become president, and that Kennedy would name Flynn as his vice president.
The inauguration of Joe Biden as president was a major disappointment for QAnon followers, who were convinced that Biden had won the election through voter fraud and that his victory would be invalidated—many QAnon adherents believed until the last minute that something momentous would happen during the ceremony, resulting in Trump remaining in power. The inauguration ultimately went on as planned. Biden being inaugurated was an especially difficult moment for Q followers: some became depressed, had suicidal thoughts, or self-harmed as a result, as they felt betrayed by Q. On inauguration day, Ron Watkins wrote in a message board post: "We gave it our all, now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able. We have a new president sworn in and it is our responsibility to respect the Constitution." Other QAnon followers believed that Biden's inauguration was "part of the plan". Around this point, many prominent conservatives, such as Steve Bannon and Bill Still, began to denounce QAnon, calling it a "psyop" (psychological operation) created by U.S. intelligence or the FBI. In a leaked text message conversation, Michael Flynn, once among the highest-profile QAnon supporters, called QAnon a "disinformation campaign to make people look like a bunch of kooks", suggesting that it might have been conducted by "the Left" or the CIA.
A group of Telegram channels called the Sabmyk Network has been promoting a variation of QAnon by primarily targeting followers of the conspiracy theory who have been disillusioned by Q's failures in prediction. Set up by controversial German artist Sebastian Bieniek, the network (described as a new religion or cult) shares mainline QAnon beliefs but also believes in an idiosyncratic mythology surrounding a leader-prophet, Sabmyk, who will lead humanity's "awakening". The network has tried to link Trump to Sabmyk.
Polling and demographics
In less than a year of existence, QAnon became significantly recognized by the general population. According to an August 2018 Qualtrics poll for The Washington Post, 58% of Floridians were familiar enough with QAnon to have an opinion about it. Of those who had an opinion, most were unfavorable. The average score on the feeling thermometer was just above 20, a very negative rating, and about half of what other political figures enjoy. Positive feelings toward QAnon were found to be strongly correlated with susceptibility to conspiracy thinking.
According to a March 2020 Pew survey, 76% of Americans said they had never heard of QAnon, 20% had heard "a little about it", and 3% said they had heard "a lot". In September 2020, a Pew survey of the 47% of respondents who said they had heard of QAnon found that 41% of Republicans and those who lean Republican believed QAnon is good for the country, while 7% of Democrats and those who lean Democratic believed that.
An October 2020 Yahoo-YouGov poll found that even if they had not heard of QAnon, a majority of Republicans and Trump supporters believed top Democrats were engaged in sex-trafficking rings and more than half of Trump supporters believed he was working to dismantle the rings.
In February 2021, an American Enterprise Institute poll found that 29% of Republicans believe the central claim of QAnon, that "Donald Trump has been secretly fighting a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites." A March 2021 Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core survey found similar results: Republicans (28%) were twice as likely as Democrats (14%) to agree that the "elites" would soon be swept from power by a coming "storm"; Republicans (23%) were three times as likely as Democrats (8%) to agree that "Satan-worshipping pedophiles" control the government and media; and Republicans (28%) were four times as likely as Democrats (7%) to agree that "true American patriots may have to resort to violence" to resolve the situation.
Incidents
Since QAnon's emergence, followers of the conspiracy theory have been part of a number of controversial, sometimes violent events.
In 2020, QAnon followers were actively involved in the presidential election, during which they supported Trump's campaign. QAnon personalities moved to dedicated message boards, where they organized to wage information warfare in an attempt to influence the election. One in 50 tweets about voting in the 2020 United States presidential election came from QAnon accounts. Two in 25 accounts using the hashtag #voterfraud, which spread unsubstantiated allegations of voting fraud, were QAnon accounts.
Attempts to overturn the 2020 U.S. Election
2021 United States
Capitol attack
As the allegations of voting fraud spread further after Trump lost the election, QAnon followers supported his legal team's efforts to overturn the election through multiple lawsuits, and submitted conspiracy theories of their own. QAnon followers advanced that voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems had deleted millions of votes for Trump. This was repeated on a segment on the far-right cable news outlet One America News Network, and Trump tweeted this segment to his followers. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency announced that the election was "the most secure in American history", with "no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised".
One specific QAnon-affiliated conspiracy theory, known as Italy-gate and pushed in the last weeks of Trump's presidency, alleged that the American election had been rigged using technology from the U.S. Embassy in Rome, with the help of an Italian hacker, the complicity of an Italian general and the involvement of the Vatican.
Based on a false interpretation of the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 by the sovereign citizen movement, according to which it transformed the federal government into a corporation and rendered illegitimate every president elected thereafter, some QAnon followers claimed that the 18th president (Ulysses S. Grant, in office from 1869 to 1877) was the last legitimate president. They believed that Trump would be sworn in as the 19th president on March 4, 2021, the original inauguration date until the Twentieth Amendment changed it to January 20 in 1933, and that he would restore the federal government. Based on intelligence that an identified but undisclosed militia group might attempt an attack on the Capitol on that date, the U.S. Capitol Police issued an alert on March 3. House leadership subsequently rescheduled a March 4 vote to the previous night to allow lawmakers to leave town.
The Anti-Defamation League, British security firm G4S, and nonpartisan governance watchdog Advance Democracy, Inc., studied QAnon posts and made various warnings of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021. Violence did occur that day, as the attempts to overturn the election culminated with the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Multiple QAnon-affiliated protesters participated in the disturbance. Rioters were either seen wearing clothing with Q-related emblems or identified as QAnon followers from video footage. One participant whose attire and behaviour attracted worldwide media attention was Jake Angeli, a QAnon supporter nicknamed the "QAnon Shaman". Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who was shot dead by police as she was trying to break into the Speaker's Lobby, was a committed follower of Qanon. The day before the attack, she had tweeted: "the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours".
The attack led to a crackdown on QAnon-related content, pages and accounts on social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. On April 19, 2021, the Soufan Center reported that Russia and China had amplified and "weaponized" QAnon stories around the time of the Capitol attack "to sow societal discord and even compromise legitimate political processes."
Reactions
Media, advocacy groups, and public figures
On December 28, 2017, the Russian television network RT aired a segment discussing "QAnon revelations", calling the anonymous poster a "secret intelligence operative inside the Trump administration known by QAnon".
On March 13, 2018, Cheryl Sullenger, the vice president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, called QAnon a "small group of insiders close to President Donald J. Trump" and called their posts the "highest level of intelligence to ever be dropped publicly in our known history". On March 15, Kyiv-based Rabochaya Gazeta [UK], the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Ukraine, published an article calling QAnon a "military intelligence group". On March 31, actor Roseanne Barr appeared to promote QAnon, which was subsequently covered by CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
On June 28, 2018, a Time magazine article listed Q among the 25 Most Influential People on the Internet in 2018. Counting more than 130,000 related discussion videos on YouTube, Time cited the wide range of the conspiracy theory and its more prominent followers and news coverage. On July 4, the Hillsborough County Republican Party shared on its official Facebook and Twitter accounts a YouTube video on QAnon, calling them a "mysterious anonymous inside leaker of deep state activities and counter activities by President Trump". The posts were soon deleted.
On August 1, 2018, following the previous day's large presence of QAnon supporters at Trump's Tampa, Florida rally for the midterm elections, MSNBC news anchors Hallie Jackson, Brian Williams, and Chris Hayes dedicated a portion of their respective programs to the conspiracy theory. PBS NewsHour also ran a segment on QAnon the next day. On August 2, Washington Post editorial writer Molly Roberts wrote, "'The storm' QAnon truthers predict will never strike because the conspiracy that obsesses them doesn't exist. But while they wait for it, they'll try to whip up the winds, and the rest of us will struggle to find shelter." On August 4, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked to comment on QAnon in his "ask me anything" session on the /r/The Donald subreddit. In response to the question "Is Q legit?", Spicer answered "No." On June 29, 2020, Reddit banned /r/The Donald for frequent rule-breaking, for antagonizing the company and other communities, and for failing to "meet our most basic expectations".
Official response
FBI domestic terrorism assessment
A May 30, 2019, FBI "Intelligence Bulletin" memo from the Phoenix Field Office identified QAnon-driven extremists as a domestic terrorism threat. The document cited a number of arrests related to QAnon, some of which had not been publicized before. According to the memo, "This is the first FBI product examining the threat from conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists and provides a baseline for future intelligence products. ... The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts."
According to FBI's counter-terrorism director Michael G. McGarrity's testimony before Congress in May, the FBI divides domestic terrorism threats into four primary categories, "racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism", which includes both abortion-rights and anti-abortion extremists. The fringe conspiracy theory threat is closely related to the anti-government/anti-authority subject area. On December 19, 2018, a Californian man whose car contained bomb-making materials he intended to use to "blow up a satanic temple monument" in the Springfield, Illinois, Capitol rotunda to "make Americans aware of Pizzagate and the New World Order, who were dismantling society" was arrested. The FBI said another factor driving the intensity of anti-government extremism is "the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures".
Congressional resolution
On August 25, 2020, two U.S. Representatives, Democrat Tom Malinowski and Republican Denver Riggleman, introduced a bipartisan simple resolution (H. Res. 1154) condemning QAnon and rejecting its conspiracy theories. Malinowski said the resolution's aim was to formally repudiate "this dangerous, anti-Semitic, conspiracy-mongering cult that the FBI says is radicalizing Americans to violence". The resolution also urged the FBI and other law enforcement and homeland security agencies "to continue to strengthen their focus on preventing violence, threats, harassment, and other criminal activity by extremists motivated by fringe political conspiracy theories" and encouraged the U.S. intelligence community "to uncover any foreign support, assistance, or online amplification QAnon receives, as well as any QAnon affiliations, coordination, and contacts with foreign extremist organizations or groups espousing violence".
In September 2020, Malinowski received death threats from QAnon followers after being falsely accused of wanting to protect sexual predators. The threats were prompted by a National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) campaign advertisement that falsely claimed that Malinowski worked against plans to increase registration for sex offenders in a 2006 crime bill while he was working as a lobbyist for Human Rights Watch.
The resolution passed on October 2, 2020, in a 371–18 vote. Seventeen Republicans (including Steve King, Paul Gosar, and Daniel Webster) and one independent (Justin Amash) voted no; Republican Andy Harris voted "present". According to Will Sommer in The Daily Beast, the resolution does not have the force of law. Before the vote, Malinowski told Slate magazine, referencing the NRCC ad: "I don't want to see any Republicans voting against fire on the House floor this week and then continuing to play with fire next week by running these kinds of ads against Democratic candidates."
Republican politicians and organizations
In 2019, two Republican congressional candidates expressed support for QAnon theories. In 2020, there were 97 QAnon followers in the primaries, of whom 22 Republicans and two independents ran in the elections of that year. Businesswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene won an August 2020 runoff to become the GOP nominee in the 14th Congressional District in Georgia. In 2020, she said many of Q's claims "have really proven to be true". Months into the Trump presidency, she stated in a video: "There's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it". Jo Rae Perkins, the 2020 Republican Senate candidate in Oregon, tweeted a video on the night of her May primary victory showing her holding a WWG1WGA sticker and stating that she "[stood] with Q and the team. Thank you Anons, and thank you patriots." She expressed regret at having later deleted the video on the advice of a political consultant. The next month she took the "digital soldiers oath" that Q had requested followers to do three days earlier.
On June 30, 2020, incumbent Republican U.S. representative Scott Tipton lost a primary for Colorado's 3rd congressional district to Lauren Boebert in an upset. Boebert expressed tentative support for QAnon in an interview, but after winning the primary, attempted to distance herself from those statements, saying "I'm not a follower." Boebert was elected to Congress that November. Angela Stanton-King, a Trump-backed candidate running for the Georgia House seat of the late congressman John Lewis, posted on Twitter that Black Lives Matter is "a major cover up for pedophilia and human trafficking" and "the storm is here". Stanton-King told a reporter that her posts did not relate to QAnon, asserting, "It was raining that day." Weather records did not show precipitation in her area on the day of the post.
In August 2020, The New York Times said that the Texas Republican Party's new slogan ("We Are the Storm") was taken from Q. Texas Republican Party officials denied this, saying it was inspired by a biblical passage and has no connection to Qanon. In May 2021, representative Louie Gohmert and Texas Republican Party chairman Allen West attended the "For God & Country: Patriot Roundup" conference organized by QAnon followers in Dallas.
Trump and connected individuals
Donald Trump
According to Media Matters for America, as of August 20, 2020, Trump had amplified QAnon messaging at least 216 times by retweeting or mentioning 129 QAnon-affiliated Twitter accounts, sometimes multiple times a day. QAnon followers came to refer to Trump as "Q+". On August 24, 2018, Trump hosted Michael William "Lionel" Lebron, a leading QAnon promoter, in the Oval Office for a photo op. Shortly after Christmas 2019, Trump retweeted over a dozen QAnon followers.
On August 19, 2020, Trump was asked about QAnon during a press conference; he replied: "I don't know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate." An FBI Field Office in Phoenix has called QAnon a potential domestic terror threat, but Trump called QAnon followers "people who love our country". When a reporter asked Trump if he could support a notion that suggests he "is secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals", he responded: "Well, I haven't heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?" Presidential candidate Joe Biden responded that Trump was aiming to "legitimize a conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a domestic terrorism threat".
On October 15, 2020, when given the opportunity to denounce QAnon at a "town hall"-style campaign event, Trump refused to do so and instead pointed out that QAnon opposes pedophilia. He said he knew nothing else about QAnon and told his questioner, Savannah Guthrie of NBC News, that no one can know whether the premise of QAnon's conspiracy theory is true. "They believe it is a satanic cult run by the deep state," Guthrie informed him. When Guthrie asserted that the conspiracy was not true, Trump responded, "No, I don't know that. And neither do you know that."
Mike Pence
On August 21, 2020, Vice President Mike Pence said that he did not "know anything about" QAnon except that it was a conspiracy theory that he "dismisse[d] out of hand". When asked whether he would acknowledge the administration's role in "giving oxygen" to the belief, Pence shook his head and said, "Give me a break." Pence also commented that the media giving attention to QAnon amounted to "[chasing] shiny objects".
After the election, as the date of College vote count approached and Pence showed no intention of blocking the certification of Biden's win, QAnon figures vilified him as a traitor. A few hours before the count started on January 6, Lin Wood tweeted that Pence should resign immediately and that charges should be brought against him. After the attack on the Capitol, Wood called on Parler for Pence's execution by firing squad.
Michael Flynn
Former lieutenant general and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn, who had briefly served as Trump's National Security Advisor, became popular among QAnon followers, who took a 2016 quote from Flynn about Trump having been elected by an "army of digital soldiers" and started calling themselves "digital soldiers".
In August 2019, a "Digital Soldiers Conference" was announced for the next month in Atlanta. The stated purpose was to prepare "patriotic social media warriors" for a coming "digital civil war" against "censorship and suppression". The announcement of the event prominently displayed a Q spelled in stars on the blue field of an American flag. Scheduled speakers for the event, which was hosted by Yippy CEO Rich Granville, included Flynn and George Papadopoulos, as well as Gina Loudon, a Trump friend and member of his campaign media advisory board, singer Joy Villa, and Bill Mitchell, a radio host and ardent Trump supporter.
On July 4, 2020, Flynn posted to his Twitter account a video of himself leading a small group in an oath with the QAnon motto, "Where we go one, we go all". Analysts said the oath was part of QAnon's attempt to organize "digital soldiers" for the political and social apocalypse they see coming. Flynn's apparent declaration of allegiance to QAnon made him the most prominent former government official to endorse the conspiracy theory. Member of Trump's legal team and Flynn's representative Sidney Powell denied that the oath was related to QAnon.[n] During the preceding days, numerous QAnon followers took the same "digital soldier oath" on Twitter, and used the same #TakeTheOath hashtag Flynn did.
After his November 2020 pardon and the election results, Flynn became more closely associated with QAnon, endorsing a website that sold QAnon merchandise, creating a Digital Soldiers media company, and saying he planned to launch a news media outlet also called "Digital soldiers". He appeared on various far-right media, pushing QAnon-affiliated conspiracy theories. Flynn's activism fueled speculation among QAnon followers that he would help them take control, or that he was Q himself. QAnon supporters expressed their commitment in social media posts by using the phrase "Fight like a Flynn" or variations thereof.
In February 2021, several weeks after the Capitol riot, Flynn distanced himself from QAnon theories by saying in an interview: "There’s no plan. There’s so many people out there asking, ‘Is the plan happening?’ We have what we have, and we have to accept the situation as it is." But he did not outright disavow the QAnon movement. In May 2021, Flynn was a keynote speaker at the "For God & Country: Patriot Roundup" conference organized in Dallas, Texas, by QAnon influencer John Sabal. At the end of the year, though, Flynn appeared to have rejected QAnon as a whole.
In March 2021, Flynn's brother, retired lieutenant general Jack Flynn, and his wife filed a $75 million defamation suit against CNN, alleging the network had falsely accused them of being QAnon followers. They asserted that the video Flynn had posted in July 2020, which CNN had broadcast, depicted their pledging an oath to the Constitution, not to QAnon. The suit claimed Flynn alone had recited the QAnon motto, "where we go one, we go all", though the video showed all the other participants had done so. The plaintiffs also said they "are not followers or supporters of any extremist or terrorist groups, including Qanon". In December 2021, federal district court judge Gregory Howard Woods largely rejected CNN's motion to dismiss the case, allowing it to proceed to determine whether the Flynns had been portrayed in a false light.
Lin Wood
Attorney Lin Wood, who worked with Trump's reelection campaign and participated in the election lawsuits, promoted QAnon conspiracy theories. His Twitter profile included the hashtag #WWG1WGA, a slogan associated with Qanon. Among other baseless QAnon-associated claims, he accused Chief Justice John Roberts of child rape and murder. Wood also claimed that QAnon supporter Isaac Kappy was murdered for attempting to transmit information to Trump. On January 11, 2021, Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig A. Karsnitz cited Wood's social media postings in his reasons for an order revoking Wood's right to appear before the court. Karsnitz said that he had "no doubt" that Wood's tweets played a role in inciting the attack on the Capitol.
In May 2021, Wood (alongside fellow attorney Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn) was a keynote speaker at the "For God & Country: Patriot Roundup" conference in Dallas.
Sidney Powell
Another member of Trump's legal team, conservative attorney Sidney Powell, denied knowledge of QAnon in January 2020, though in the following months she retweeted major QAnon accounts and catchphrases and appeared on QAnon shows on YouTube.
Upon leaving Trump's team, Powell remained involved in post-election lawsuits and was embraced by QAnon followers. Many of them had become discouraged that years of predictions of a Trump landslide victory and coming revelations about his enemies had not materialized. Powell's evidence in the lawsuit she filed in Georgia to overturn the election result included an affidavit from Ron Watkins. In his affidavit, Watkins stated that his reading of an online user guide for Dominion Voting Systems software led him to conclude that election fraud might be "within the realm of possibility". Watkins did not provide any legitimate evidence of fraud.
In May 2021, Powell asserted at the aforementioned QAnon conference that Trump "can simply be reinstated" that "a new inauguration date is set", eliciting cheers from the crowd. The date for this was supposedly August 13 of the same year.
Other
On three occasions during 2019 and 2020, Trump's deputy chief of staff and social media director Dan Scavino tweeted ticking-clock memes QAnon followers use to signify the countdown until the "Storm". Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, also occasionally retweeted posts with the #QAnon hashtag and follows many QAnon advocates. Eric Trump, in a summer 2020 tweet (later deleted), promoted his father's rally in Tulsa with an image of a large "Q" and the text "Where we go one, we go all". A videographer found numerous QAnon supporters in the crowd, identified by their QAnon shirts showing large "Q"'s or "WWG1WGA" (short for "Where we go one, we go all").
At a Trump reelection rally several hours after an FBI counter-terrorism memo linked the spread of conspiracy theories to anti-government terrorism became known, WalkAway campaign founder Brandon Straka, a former liberal Democrat who is now a Trump supporter, addressed the crowd, saying, "Where we go one, we go all".
Online platforms
Publishing of personal information
On March 14, 2018, Reddit banned one of its communities discussing QAnon, /r/CBTS_Stream, for "encouraging or inciting violence and posting personal and confidential information". After that, some followers moved to Discord. Several other communities were formed for discussion of QAnon, leading to further bans on September 12, 2018, in response to these communities "inciting violence, harassment, and the dissemination of personal information", which led to thousands of followers regrouping on Voat, a Switzerland-based Reddit clone that has been described as a hub for the alt-right.
QDrops app
QDrops, an app that promoted the conspiracy theory, was published on the Apple App Store and Google Play. It became the most popular paid app in Apple's online store's the "entertainment" section in April 2018, and the tenth-most popular paid app overall. It was published by Tiger Team Inc., a North Carolina couple, Richard and Adalita Brown. On July 15, 2018, Apple pulled the app after an inquiry from NBC News.
In mid-May 2020, Google removed three other apps – QMAP, Q Alerts! and Q Alerts LITE – from the Android app store for violating its terms of service.
Anti-QAnon subreddits
Some social media forums, such as the subreddits r/QAnonCasualties and r/ReQovery, aim to assist either former followers and supporters of QAnon conspiracies or those whose family members engaged in the conspiracy.
Removal of related content
In early 2019, Twitter removed accounts suspected of being connected to the Russian Internet Research Agency that had disseminated a high volume of tweets related to #QAnon that also used the #WWG1WGA slogan.
On May 5, 2020, Facebook announced its removal of five pages, twenty accounts, and six groups linked to "individuals associated with the QAnon network" as part of an investigation into "suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior" ahead of the 2020 United States election. On August 19, Facebook expanded its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy to address "growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior". As a result of this increased vigilance, Facebook reported having already "removed over 790 groups, 100 Pages and 1,500 ads tied to QAnon from Facebook, blocked over 300 hashtags across Facebook and Instagram, and additionally imposed restrictions on over 1,950 Groups and 440 Pages on Facebook and over 10,000 accounts on Instagram". In the first month after its August announcement, Facebook said it deleted 1,500 QAnon groups; such groups by then had four million followers. On October 6, 2020, Facebook said it would immediately begin removing "any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content". The company said it would immediately ban any group representing QAnon.
On July 21, 2020, Twitter announced it was banning more than seven thousand accounts in connection with QAnon for coordinated amplification of fake news and conspiracy theories. In a press release, Twitter said, "We've been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called 'QAnon' activity across the service." It also said that the actions may apply to over 150,000 accounts.
Facebook banned all QAnon groups and pages on October 6, 2020. That day, QAnon followers speculated that the action was part of a complex Trump administration strategy to begin arresting its enemies, or that Facebook was attempting to silence news of this occurring; neither is true. Some followers speculated that a Justice Department "national security" news conference scheduled for the next day would relate to charges against Democrats, including Hillary Clinton. The Justice Department actually announced the investigation and arrest of Islamic State members.
In an October 12, 2020, interview with CNN, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said much QAnon material was "borderline content" that did not explicitly break its rules, but that changes in the site's methodology for recommendations had reduced views of QAnon-related content by 80%. Three days later, YouTube announced that it had modified its hate and harassment policies to bar "content that targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence", such as QAnon and Pizzagate. It would still allow content discussing QAnon if it did not target individuals.
Hashtags and accounts associated with QAnon have since been banned by numerous social networks including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram.
In particular, the January 2021 attack on the Capitol led to a crackdown on QAnon-related content on social media platforms during the days that followed. Twitter suspended Lin Wood's account on January 7 and those of Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and other high-profile QAnon figures on the following day. On January 12, Facebook and Twitter announced that they were removing "Stop the Steal" content and suspending 70,000 QAnon-focused accounts, respectively. More waves of deletions followed on various platforms.
QAnon-related merchandise was widely available on Amazon's online marketplace in 2018; in 2019, a pro-QAnon work by 12 QAnon followers neared the top of Amazon's bestsellers list, possibly through algorithmic manipulation. In 2020, Politico noted that 100 titles associated with QAnon were available on Amazon marketplace, in many different languages and with generally positive reviews. QAnon-related merchandise was also available on Etsy and Teespring, and pages relating to the conspiracy theory were on Patreon and GoFundMe. On October 7, 2020, Etsy announced that it would remove all QAnon-related merchandise from its online marketplace; the products were still available there as of January 2021. Amazon removed the pro-QAnon book after the Capitol riots, and many platforms took action against QAnon-related content after the incident.
In May 2021, a report published by the Atlantic Council concluded that QAnon content was "evaporating" from the mainstream web.
Migration to alt-tech
The mass deletions of QAnon-related accounts on the most popular social media outlets led many members of the movement to migrate to alt-tech platforms. Parler is one such "free speech" social media platform which gained in popularity among QAnon followers and conservatives in general, in early 2021. Gab also became increasingly popular in these environments, especially after Parler went offline for several weeks following the Capitol attack.
In the course of 2021, various alt-tech platforms allowed QAnon influencers and adherents to regroup, with Gab and Telegram becoming particularly important hubs of QAnon communities.
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