On Saturday, nearly a hundred protesters piled up in the Big Red Wagon, a well-known charm in downtown Spokane, Washington. Men, women and young people marched through the streets singing “Save the Young.” It was an effort “to raise awareness and start a conversation” about child trafficking, according to a local television reporter at the scene.
Many protesters showed symptoms that can be expected in such a demonstration: “Save our children,” “Your silence is deafening” and “Wake up our children,” to name a few.
But other symptoms were less transparent and warned that something darker was being transmitted on one occasion that seemed biological and understanding in a different way. “Symbolism will be its ruin,” one said. Another had the hashtag “#Pedowood”. However, another was a strange acronym: “WWG1WGA”, short for “Where we pass one, we all pass”.
These signs, which have been discovered at many of those recently held rallies in the United States, are references to QAnon, the conspiracy theory that has gained popularity in recent months. It turned out that the demonstration had nothing to do with the century-old humanitarian charity Save the Children.
QAnon is an extensive and unfounded conspiracy theory that claims that President Donald Trump is involved in a secret war opposed to a clique of Satanist child abusers in government, entertainment and the media. The plot, which spread to millions of Facebook organization users about the pandemic, was related to several violent crimes and last year was labeled as a potential national terrorist risk through the F.B.I.
HAPPENING NOW: A demonstration to end child trafficking begins at Red Wagon in downtown Spokane. Organizer Mia Gray says the occasion aims to raise awareness and start a conversation. They walked down Spokane Falls Boulevard singing “Save the Children.” @KHQLocalNews pic.twitter.com/BikxrD0upr
– KHQ Noelle Lashley (@noellelashley) 9 August 2020
Spokane’s scene is just one of many demonstrations planned on Facebook through QAnon supporters or supporters who have brought the conspiracy theory offline and in the squares of dozens of villages in recent weeks. On Saturday, more than two hundred Save the Children chances are planned across the country, organized through a constellation of Americans and newly formed groups, according to research through NBC News on occasion on Facebook.
Occasions themselves tend to stick to a familiar pattern. People march through the main streets and sing, regularly focusing on the broader issues of child abuse and human trafficking. Speaking to local journalists, protesters rarely mention QAnon or broader conspiracy theories, and stick to needs such as stricter legislation against paedophilia and increased media attention to sex trafficking. The marches are friendly and peaceful. Young people also march, dressed in T-shirts with bloody hand prints and with small symptoms with messages like “I’m not for sale.”
QAnon has spent years outside the Internet, with the theory evolving and adjusting less specifically. What was originally a conspiracy theory centered on an unnamed internet poster has now become a kind of trap for a variety of ideals about a hidden organization of child abusers in positions of power.
This has helped create an appropriate access point for many others who may not spend much time on the dark parts of the Internet and who are active on Facebook. It is a strategy that has led to a significant increase in the number of other people who might not necessarily be among the highs in QAnon, but who are beginning to become familiar with some of their ideas.
“This is not pedophilia,” said Whitney Phillips, assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies at Syracuse University and co-author of the e-book “You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories and Our Polluted Media Landscape.” “It’s not about protecting children. It’s a conspiracy theory that tries to explain itself, in other words, interact with more people and make them understanding.”
And those other friendly people show up at the rallies and go out to act. People who have spent years running for organizations fighting human trafficking and child abuse say they have been inundated with bizarre accusations and advice, as well as complaints and threats.
In early August, the hashtag #SaveTheChildren seemed to be everywhere. As it grew, Facebook briefly disabled the hashtag, warning that it was opposed to network standards. This action spilled gas on the QAnon network, which mobilized to circumvent what it called “censorship”.
The hashtag was reset and continued to take off, but lost momentum when QAnon believers moved to #SaveOurchildren after learning that Save the Children, the humanitarian organization founded in 1919, funded as a component through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill Gates is a constant target of unfounded conspiracy theories spread through QAnon teams since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The nonprofit Save the Children responded to a request for comment.
While 3.5 million users on thousands of teams “talked” about #SaveTheChildren and #SaveOurchildren On Friday, according to Facebook data, the most engaging conversations were taking place on Facebook teams and on Instagram accounts connected to QAnon, according to a study conducted through First Draft. a nonprofit that tracks incorrect information online and provides studies and journalists.
QAnon teams account for only 18% of those who post in #SaveOurChildren. But they accounted for about 70% of overall interactions on the hashtag in August, according to First Draft. On Instagram, QAnon-related accounts that post on #SaveOurChildren accounted for 75% of interactions. Most of the hashtags in August #SaveOurChildren posts are express to QAnon.
“Knowledge recommends that a small number of Facebook teams and Instagram accounts connected to QAnon would possibly have amplified and accepted #SaveOurChildren and related language by creating a multitude of unprecedented posts and activities around the hashtag,” said Rory Smith, the director studios of First Draft who wrote the analysis.
Facebook took strong action against QAnon on Wednesday or restricted more than 13,000 groups, pages and Instagram accounts promoting QAnon content and “discussing possible violence.”
The action did not look like the rallies planned for this weekend, occasions that remain largely on Facebook.
Facebook did not respond to a request for comment, but a user within the company who spoke on anonymity condition because it was not legal to speak publicly said the team proceeded to review QAnon’s content in connection with the new policy, adding Save the Children. Events.
Although many save the Children occasions do not bragably embrace QAnon’s beliefs, the band’s connection never disappears.
On their non-public social media pages and in their own Facebook groups, the organizers of the upcoming larger meetings bravocally embrace the QAnon ideology and disseminate its content. The occasional Facebook pages are full of conspiracy theories involving vast child trafficking networks and unfounded accusations about the involvement of Hollywood actors and politicians.
Scotty Rojas, a musician and social media manager who goes through Scotty the Kid, was the force of an Instagram crusade to bring together protesters in 100 cities on August 22. Rojas organized one of the first demonstrations, a March of July 31 in Hollywood that ended with dozens of other people with posters with messages that included “Hillary Clinton is Satan” and others trained in portions of pizza, a reference to “pizzagate”, the unsubstantiated statement that the child trafficking network is being ejected from a Washington pizzeria “Rojas headed the rally dressed in a T-shirt with a giant Q stamped on the front and a megaphone through which he directed chants of QAnon’s cries like “Where we’re going, we’re all going.”
Shauna Blen, a California activist in a team effort to unite many Saturday rallies, noticed the strong presence of QAnon believers at previous rallies, but said everyone was welcome.
“There were a lot of Trump supporters, many Q supporters,” he said. “But there were also many Democrats and others who don’t like Trump and don’t even stick to Q.”
As for his non-public position, Blen said, “I think you can just say that I Q.”
Other organizers were less willing to claim QAnon, but they needed to deny it. Amy Coon and Isaac Miller are the founders of Where’s Our Children, a new Nashville-based organization, and planners over 25 rallies for next Saturday, August 29. They said they were running to leave blank descriptions of their rallies, many of which contained hashtags belonging to the QAnon conspiracy.
“Everyone will have their own freedoms and beliefs,” Miller said of the protesters.
When asked if the idea of the pizzagate organization was real, echoing one of the hashtags about its many events, Coon hesitated.
“We will verify or deny this,” Coon said.
An organization that shaped “Freedom for Children” in July hosted more than 60 demonstrations in 26 states and Canada, according to its website, where they are made up of donations. Until Wednesday, the private Facebook profiles of co-founders Bhairavi Shera and Tara Nicole, as noted through NBC News, contained articles with conspiracy theories about Bill Gates, the coronavirus and QAnon’s precursor, pizzagate. By Thursday, Shera’s non-public profile had been deleted or deleted, and Nicole had deleted or created previous messages of her own.
Shera and Nicole responded to a request for comment,
Your communication strategy turns out to be working. Regardless of his public online publications and page of occasions, the local media’s policy of occasions has been widespread and gullible, and he almost never mentions QAnon’s connections at times. Some local radio and television stations have announced lists of occasions on their news websites.
The Colorado Times Recorder served as an atypical case with its last week: “The March Against Child Sex Trafficking in Denver rooted in QAnon’s conspiracy theories.”
The six organizers of the rally who spoke to NBC News said the goal of their protests was to draw media attention. In fact, many symptoms seen at rallies ask why the media reports protests opposed to COVID-19 or Black Lives Matter rather than the “true pandemic” of missing children.
It’s a tactic that can attract more followers.
“The media acts as interlocutors between movements and politicians,” said Joan Donovan, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media Policy and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. “And media attention can also be a sound recruitment strategy.”
People who have spent much of their lives fighting human trafficking and child abuse have been hardest hit by the popularity of the Save the Children movement.
Rochelle Keyhan, executive director of the nonprofit Collective Liberty, has been bombarded in recent months with text messages, Facebook messages and LinkedIn requests, all directing her to conspiracy theories and YouTube videos about satanic kabbalas. He usually receives a 10-part YouTube video about how Trump secretly gathered all the Satanists and, in turn, stopped child trafficking.
Keyhan is a former sexist crime prosecutor with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. He has designed a “Disruption Strategies” department within the Polaris anti-trafficking organization. She said incoming messages are incessant.
“They’re like, ” have you noticed this? What are you doing about it? “She said.” All day, every single day, we do a lot about it.”
Before QAnon members realized the hashtag #SaveTheChildren, QAnon enthusiasts invented the conspiracy theory that the furniture Wayfair trafficked without young people on expensive shelves and pillows last month.
Keyhan’s group, which has been inundated with Wayfair advice, factored an explanation that the exorbitant costs were caused by poor search engine optimization and not evidence of a satanic kabbalah. Polaris too, who was forced to factor an Array in the hope that QAnon fans would avoid sending the fake Wayfair advice.
“While Polaris treats all calls to Hotline Trafficking seriously, the excessive volume of those contacts has made it more difficult for the Trafficking Hotline to provide and serve others in need of help,” the company said.
Keyhan said those conspiracy theories occasionally misemark how trafficking looks at times, which can make it difficult for genuine victims to get help.
“Your son’s friend might have all the precautionary symptoms of the same women Epstein was a victim of,” Keyhan said, referring to Jeffrey Epstein, the financial millionaire accused of federal sex trafficking. “If we don’t pay attention, then we let those young men fall into the hands of predators.”
This is also the fear of Eliza, a victim of human trafficking who now runs to monitor survivors of trafficking. (His last call is withhold to his identity as former attackers.)
“There’s nothing scarier for me as a lawyer than thinking about a survivor who can’t use the people traffic hotline or the national people traffic line because it’s flooded with Wayfair calls,” he said.
Eliza, who is celebrating a virtual occasion on Saturday with survivors who have been abused through Epstein, was discouraged in the first place because QAnon supporters drowned out genuine calls to action to provoke child sex trafficking and said he was contemplating completing his efforts due to “constant misinformation.” “
While Eliza is hopeful that the new wave of attention can raise awareness among others who need to end human trafficking in the genuine world, the symbol of sex trafficking painted in QAnon’s edition of the “Save the Children” crusade has no end. reflects authenticity, he told me.
“We find this challenge where we see photographs of little white women with chains. And, just talking about my non-public experience, I didn’t interfere before, it’s me, speaking like a survivor, because I don’t think she’d been transported to the back of a truck,” Eliza said. “I didn’t know what human trafficking meant.”
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