THREAD: I've spent the last day of September trying to come up with as accurate a number as I can possibly arrive at for the number of times QAnon-related hashtags have been used on Twitter in the first nine months of this year. And I now have a figure: 20.6 million times
These are the hashtags I've used. I decided to stick with hashtags rather than specific terms and phrases as those quarterly samples included many tweets from news organisations, journalists and ordinary users. While samples with only hashtags mostly featured tweets by QAnoners
There are 4.8 million tweets in the first quarter (1 Jan-31 Mar). #QAnon (2.8m) #WWG1WGA (2.1m) are the most popular ones in the period. Biggest tweet of the quarter is full NESARA GESARA. The global geographical spread of the hashtags shows QAnon is still primarily US-centric
There are 10.9 million tweets from 1 Apr-30 Jun. #Pizzagate (1.1m) has a sudden resurgence. And we see the rise of #TakeTheOath (480k). Biggest tweet of the quarter is indeed a #TakeTheOath video. Geographical map shows QAnon is beginning to spread to Europe and South America
In the third quarter (1 Jul-30 Sep) we see the full adoption of #SaveTheChildren (1m) and #SaveOurChildren (480k). As Twitter restrictions come in, all the other hashtags fall sharply. Biggest tweet of the period is related to child trafficking. QAnon has become bigger globally
Add the numbers from all three quarters (4.8m, 10.9m, 4.9m) and you get the magic number of 20.6m tweets. Once again, this is not a definitive number. For that, I'd have to sift through all the tweets from each quarterly sample. But it's as close to accurate as I can get.
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BBC Verify has pieced together verified videos, satellite imagery and expert views after a deadly attack near a primary school in Minab, souther Iran, which suggest the area was hit more than once "by multiple simultaneous or near-simultaneous strikes".
Satellite imagery by @planet shows at least five buildings with visible craters and black scorch marks in the area.
"[It] seems it was intentional to hit the area," a satellite analyst said, adding: "But we don't know what they intended to strike."
@planet Two videos filmed in the immediate aftermath of the attack show multiple plumes of smoke within an IRGC base and medical clinic near the school, as well as the school's top floor.
The location of smoke plumes in videos correspond to visible damage in satellite imagery.
THREAD: Misinformation in the Iran/US/Israel war - 28 February
This video, viewed over five million times, claims to show Iranian ballisitic missiles over Dubai.
But the clip is old. It was filmed in October 2024, showing Iranian missiles fired towards Tel Aviv at the time.
This viral video, viewed 4.5 million times, claims to show a location on fire in Saudi Arabia during the exchange of fire between Iran, Israel and the US.
But the video is from July 2024, and shows Israeli strikes on Yemen's Hudaydah port.
This video, viewed over a million times, claims to show a building in Tel Aviv on fire after Iranian strikes.
In reality, it dates back to October 2024 and shows a building on Korkidi Street in Tel Aviv engulfed in flames.
A group of pro-regime Basiji students attack student protesters sheltering inside the school of engineering at the Univeristy of Tehran during campus protests.
@anjmotahed @GeoConfirmed Violent clashes break out between students and pro-regime Basij members who attack protesters inside Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology.