‘QAnon, the US-based conspiracy about a Satan-worshipping, paedophile cabal secretly running the world, is taking root in Europe feeding on fears stirred up by the coronavirus outbreak, analysts say. Anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and government sceptics in Europe are starting to buy into the ill-defined but pro-Donald Trump conspiracy that emerged across the Atlantic in 2017.
‘Dozens of European QAnon offshoots have sprung up online, while protesters have brandished Q-themed messages at demonstrations in Berlin, London and Paris denouncing face masks and other measures to curb the pandemic. “While the conspiracy’s growth in the US has been an outward and visible process, what has gone less noticed is QAnon’s extensive root growth and spread in Europe,” fake news monitor NewsGuard warned in a report in July. It identified the Covid-19 crisis as a “catalyst”.’
Read here (South China Morning Post, Sept 15, 2020)
