QAnon—Who Promotes It? The Answer Is, China

QAnon is not a movement nor, as some say, a “cult.” It is a repository of conspiracy material, which is then spread to millions of readers through the Internet. After Twitter took more decisive action to remove QAnon-related posts, Facebook acknowledged to be the main conduit for the QAnon material, and that those reading it on the social network are indeed in the millions.

But who promotes QAnon on Facebook? There is not a single answer, nor an evil “puppet master” masterminding the QAnon operation there. The success of QAnon is due to the fact that thousands of individuals and small groups, most of them not organized, spread its material. However, increasingly, the FBI and other American agencies have alerted that foreign countries are also active in this field. And they are organized spreaders, with a method, a strategy, and economic resources. Their activities accounted in 2020 for 19% of the QAnon-related propaganda on Facebook, and are now rising beyond 20%.

These activities are analyzed in a White Paper by The Soufan Center, a respected counter-terrorism and national security research firm based in New York, released on April 19, 2021.

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