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Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
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13 Oct, 9 tweets, 7 min read
NEW: I've spent the last 3 months investigating the rise of QAnon in the UK and Save Our Children rallies up and down the country. I've spent hours in their Facebook groups, attended their rallies and talked to the protesters. Here's how it happened
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
In May, a young woman began engaging with David Icke and QAnon influencers in the US and Canada on social media about Covid-19 lockdowns, George Floyd protests, and global child trafficking. A few weeks later, she launched Freedom for the Children UK
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
The Facebook group quickly took off, amassing more than 13,000 members. On 22 August, they launched their first round of nationwide Save Our Children rallies. Hundreds attended. By September, they had held rallies in more than 20 UK towns and cities
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
The pace of QAnon's growth was mind-blowing. Outside the US, British followers lead the way. My analysis of online data from the summer puts the UK ahead of all European countries in terms of QAnon-related engagements, followed by Germany and Netherlands
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
A number of national scandals in relation to elite child abuse in recent years had already primed the UK for the rise of QAnon. The upheaval of the pandemic created a perfect storm which helped QAnon find common ground with Covid-19 conspiracists and grow
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
The demographic makeup of the marches does not match the stereotypical crowd of far-right men. The crowds are ethnically diverse and made up mostly of young people and women. Even their leaders are mostly women, with a few coming from wellness communities
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
"Pizzagate is 100% true," Jada, a young protester in London, told me. "There are paedophiles in our elite everywhere and they need to be taken down. This is happening in the US, in the UK and all over the world."
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
The piece features insight and analysis from @AnnieKNK of @QanonAnonymous, @nickbackovic and @TheOndrakGuy of @LogicallyAI, @_MAArgentino of @Concordia, David Lawrence of @hopenothate, @LauraMDuran of @ECPATUK, editors of @rattleliverpool and @thestephencw bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…
And finally, many many thanks to my editors @mwendling, @sarahshenker and @rebeccaskippage for their guidance, advice and help throughout. Please read and share my three-month-long investigation into how QAnon took off in the UK this year.
bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-tre…

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More from @Shayan86

Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
7 Oct
Holy hell. Just had a look at my list of QAnon groups and pages on Facebook and it's bloodbath out there. Absolute bloodbath. I'm down to 31 groups and 49 pages. I had 220 groups and 205 pages just last week 😮 On Instagram, I'm down to 258 accounts, I had nearly 400 last week.
The lucky ones that have survived the cull have already pressed the panic button. Warnings are going out to members to avoid any references to Q or QAnon. Backup accounts and channels are already being set up. They all seem to have grasped this time Facebook looks serious.
On my list, there are now only five Facebook groups, nine pages and 19 Instagram accounts remaining with more than 10,000 members, likes or followers. I can't stress how huge this is. Gone are pretty much all the major QAnon groups/pages with tens of thousands of members/likes.
Read 8 tweets
Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
6 Oct
Don't expect to see QAnon groups, pages and accounts on Facebook/Instagram vanish overnight. Facebook says it needs time, given the huge number of these groups, pages and accounts. Fair enough. Ignore these announcements, which often lead to tonnes of free PR for the tech giants.
Instead, give them the time they say they need and then look at the evidence. Judge them based on the effectiveness of their actions. Did they do what they said they'd do? I'm happy to give Facebook a month, let's see how many groups, pages and accounts are still up by then.
Last time around, when they announced they'd take down any QAnon content that encouraged violence, the evidence after a month was 50-50 at best. They removed some big groups, pages and accounts, and failed to take action against some others. Let's see how well they do this time.
Read 4 tweets
Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
6 Oct
BREAKING: Facebook says it's extending its August restrictions against QAnon. Effective today, the social network will "remove any Facebook pages, groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content". about.fb.com/news/2020/08/a…
Facebook says the enforcement "will take time and need to continue in the coming days and weeks". They said the same thing in August. They also say recent examples of QAnon misinformation, like their claims about west coast wildfires, have led them to change tack.
Crucially, Facebook says QAnon believers "build an audience with one message and then quickly pivot to another". Journalists and researchers have been pointing this out from the moment the initial restrictions came into place back in August.
Read 8 tweets
Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
30 Sep
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 ImageImageImage
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 ImageImageImage
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 ImageImageImageImage
Read 6 tweets
Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
30 Sep
There were over 2 million tweets with #Debates2020 throughout the debate. On Facebook, more than 300,000 public posts were made, generating more than 87 million interactions. On Instagram, 10,000 posts were made, generating 27 million interactions. Let's look at the biggest posts
This was the biggest tweet of the night, which got 136,000 retweets and 376,000 likes. The second biggest tweet was by Joe Biden's official account with 113,000 retweets and 514,000 likes
The biggest post on Facebook was by a pro-Biden page with 42,000 shares. The second biggest post was by a pro-Trump page with 31,000 shares
Read 5 tweets
Shayan Sardarizadeh Profile picture
26 Sep
Thousands gathered in Trafalgar Square today to protest against Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the government, lockdowns, masks, social distancing guidelines, "forced" vaccines, 5G, trafficking and "new world order". David Icke and Piers Corbyn delivered the keynote speeches ImageImageImageImage
Things got a bit tense at the end of the rally after @MetPoliceEvents said the crowd had "not complied with the conditions of their risk assessment" and attempted to disperse them. At least three protesters and one officer were treated by medical staff, after clashes with police ImageImageImage
Some of the placards and signs:

"Hands off our children"
"A hug a day keeps the Covid away"
"Don't blockchain our babies"
"Did anyone see a pandemic"
"Arrest Bill Gates for crimes against humanity"
"No to mandatory vaccinations"
"Wizardz vs lizardz"
"Covid-1984"
"We are the 99%" ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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