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The conspiracy theorist QAnon movement also has a following in Portugal. According to Expresso, a judicial source verified that there are 250 Portuguese who spread the racist and hate messages of this extremist group on social networks. Expresso found some cases on Twitter and Facebook, but the Portuguese express themselves mainly on the social networks of countries with more QAnon implantation, such as Germany and France.
QAnon’s first post appeared in October 2017 and was immediately repeated by far-right militants such as white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The founder is an anonymous US government who simply signs “Q”. The group says Donald Trump is the protector of American society against Jews and pedophiles.
The movement, which grew on the internet and social media, has thousands of followers in the United States. The FBI already considers it a terrorist threat, but Trump insists on refusing to condemn this ‘cult’. QAnon has spread throughout Europe and is estimated to be already implemented in 70 countries.
In Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein alone, there are 120,000 people associated with the movement. In demonstrations against the restrictions imposed by the German government to deal with the outbreak of the new coronavirus, posters with the QAnon theories were identified in Berlin, Stuttgart and Munich. The movement has also been in denial protests in other European cities, such as London and Paris.
The spread of the movement in Europe has been reinforced by the pandemic crisis. His followers spread fake news related to the virus, openly criticizing public health measures against covid-19.
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube deleted thousands of accounts and groups of these far-right conspiracy theorists. Many of its members, however, have migrated to other applications that allow more secure and encrypted communication, such as Telegram, which has made it difficult to monitor the authorities. The Portuguese security forces are attentive to the phenomenon.
