QAnon Gets Foothold in Balkans, Claiming COVID-19 “Does Not Exist”
QAnon’s founding myth is that the world is controlled by a circle of paedophiles, Democrats among them, operating a global child sex-trafficking ring and that Donald Trump was anointed to take them down.
First confined to the fringes, its reach has recently exploded, bombarding the Internet with false information about the COVID-19 pandemic, racial tensions in the US and Trump’s bid for re-election in November.
Facebook has removed 790 QAnon groups, 100 pages and 1,500 ads and blocked more than 300 hashtags linked to the movement QAnon. Twitter has removed some 7,000 accounts.
The Bosnian offshoot regularly echoes its far larger US counterparts in claiming that COVID-19 “does not exist”, that parents should resist “forced vaccination” and that the use of 5G mobile technology “will have irreparable consequences for all living creatures on Earth.”
In an interview with BIRN, Valjevac said the group blocks “fake profiles who spam our page with fake information”, but much of the information that is posted is regularly deemed false by Facebook administrators or fact-checkers. On average every tenth post is removed.
Valjevac said that Q-ANON Bosna i Herzegovina has no long-term goals and is currently apolitical.
“We are here to watch and respond fairly to the poisonous propaganda dragging mankind into wars and violence for centuries in the name of rulers whom they have never met but spill their blood for them,” he said.
“Q promotes peace, Q is peace. All this crazy fast-paced world needs is for people to step away from their cell phones, TVs and computers, and think for themselves. Believe me, they would find many illogical things in the world.”
Q-ANON Bosna i Hercegovina finds COVID-19 illogical, calling it a “show” behind which there is a larger “battle between good and evil” playing out.
Likewise, according to this group, George Floyd, the African-American man who died in Minneapolis after a police officer held his knee on his neck for almost eight minutes, triggering nationwide protests, was not in fact killed. “It was all a false flag in order to provoke street wars,” wrote one of the group’s administrators whose public profile describes him as working for ‘Team Trump’.
The administrator did not respond to an interview request sent via Facebook.
In a response to questions from BIRN Facebook said that “the pages and groups against whom measures have been taken are mostly seated in the USA, but also include those seated in a series of states throughout the world, including the Balkans, as well as in other languages, including German and French.”
‘This is worrisome’
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Balkan Insight can be found here ***
