Speaker 1: Q and On is now the most prolific online conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory of the twenty one century. None of their predictions
Speaker 1: came true. Q has vanished and the storm never came,
Speaker 1: but Q and on is still alive. I'm Jake Hanrahan
Speaker 1: and this is Series two of Q Clearance, a podcast
Speaker 1: shedding light on the ongoing Q and on conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: This is a production of Kudata Media and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: In the last episode, we spoke about the January six
Speaker 1: storming of the Capitol Building and how that was heavily
Speaker 1: tied to Q and On. We heard how many Q
Speaker 1: followers literally posted footage of themselves committing federal crimes on
Speaker 1: social media, often even using Q and on hashtags and
Speaker 1: mottoes such as where we go One, we Go All
Speaker 1: and hashtag us the Plan. After it was clear that
Speaker 1: the Capitol Building rioters were in deep shit and largely
Speaker 1: connected to Q, major social media companies launched a sweeping
Speaker 1: set of restrictions against anyone promoting Q and on. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the major players were banned, deleted, and removed from platforms
Speaker 1: such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Of course, these tech
Speaker 1: giants made themselves out to be holier than thou by
Speaker 1: doing this. But don't forget they allowed Q and on
Speaker 1: to thrive before deciding to collectively take action. But take
Speaker 1: action they did. Some of the largest Q and on
Speaker 1: personalities had hundreds of thousands of followers. They lost their
Speaker 1: accounts overnight, and so did the most vocal Q and
Speaker 1: ons on social media, even if they only had a
Speaker 1: small following. So within the space of eight weeks, Q vanished,
Speaker 1: posting his last drop on December eight, Trump lost the election,
Speaker 1: and Q and ons were removed from social media. At
Speaker 1: this point when it was absolutely clear that Qu's plan
Speaker 1: was all a hoax. The plan was never gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Many Q and On's lost faith. We'll talk about that
Speaker 1: in another episode, but today we're focusing on the t
Speaker 1: and On's that didn't lose faith, the ones who doubled down.
Speaker 1: They refused to accept the feet, and ironically, they then
Speaker 1: found themselves in the perfect spot to take their conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories to new levels of absolute madness. Banished from all
Speaker 1: the mainstream social media sites, Q followers locked to the
Speaker 1: instant messaging app Telegram. Essentially, they went underground. It's here
Speaker 1: where Q and on has taken on a new, even
Speaker 1: stranger form. Now, before we go into that, first, let's
Speaker 1: talk about Telegram. You might use it yourself. I do,
Speaker 1: most journalists have it. It's a lot like WhatsApp, but
Speaker 1: the sales pitch amongst users is often that it's more
Speaker 1: cryptographically secure. It's also not owned by Facebook, as WhatsApp is,
Speaker 1: and therefore it isn't in favor of deeply on democratic
Speaker 1: censorship like Facebook is. Now. Because of this, there have
Speaker 1: been some extremely over dramatic takes written about Telegram. Some
Speaker 1: journalists have even claimed it's an app for the far right.
Speaker 1: That's really not quite accurate. As I've said, Telegram is
Speaker 1: a messaging app where you can create your own channels
Speaker 1: or groups, which basically like chat rooms. You can add people,
Speaker 1: people can subscribe, you can broadcast information, or you can
Speaker 1: allow everyone to talk whatever however you want to do it,
Speaker 1: There are many options. Telegram, for the most part, adheres
Speaker 1: to free speech in an absolutist kind of way and
Speaker 1: is therefore pretty much open to everyone. There are very
Speaker 1: few rules. Really. Now, does that mean that neo Nazis,
Speaker 1: racists and other horrific scumbags can use this app? Yes?
Speaker 1: And if that shocks you. All I can say is
Speaker 1: welcome to the Internet. Telegram is not, however, only used
Speaker 1: by the worst people in our society, those people I
Speaker 1: just mentioned. Telegram is also used by activists living in
Speaker 1: authoritarian regimes and a kiss militant groups. I follow a
Speaker 1: group of them. I've seen them on there a few times.
Speaker 1: Journalists throughout the world, loads all over the place putting
Speaker 1: in information. There were news aggregators, leftist media organizations, many,
Speaker 1: many varying different people and facets of society are using Telegram.
Speaker 1: Telegram is simply a tool, and as I mentioned, it's
Speaker 1: one Q and On's when absolutely wild with and they
Speaker 1: still are now. Trust me, I do not work for Telegram.
Speaker 1: I don't particularly care about Telegram who runs it. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to get that out of the way so
Speaker 1: people understand that this is just a messaging app that
Speaker 1: was already there. The Q and Ons they migrated onto
Speaker 1: it because you know, when they were kicked off of
Speaker 1: social media, they needed a place to go. So many
Speaker 1: different channels popped up on Telegram to take on what
Speaker 1: we're in a way que and on refugees if you like.
Speaker 1: I saw a few of them referring to themselves as that, which,
Speaker 1: depending on some of their political views, is quite ironic.
Speaker 1: They needed to the somewhere, though, and they wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to each other, talk about the plan. Keep it
Speaker 1: moving now. I've been following a few of these channels,
Speaker 1: and to give you an idea of what they're about,
Speaker 1: here's some content from one that has over one and
Speaker 1: ten thousand subscribers. Brace yourself for this. This is pretty
Speaker 1: much a standard message from this group. By the way,
Speaker 1: it's wild, okay, so quote President Trump, Pompeo, Miller, Coms
Speaker 1: and more popcorn emoji. Trump's statement on Afghanistan troops plus
Speaker 1: decode follow the money zero day. The time has come
Speaker 1: to take back our country. What is mill intel fees
Speaker 1: a gate coming very soon to a fear near you?
Speaker 1: Rats running timing is everything. Enjoy the show. Trump's statement
Speaker 1: on terrorism plus decode Cuomo equals murderer, voter ideal or
Speaker 1: will be mandated? Who fun isis HRC connected? Biden equals
Speaker 1: cheatah what must be done first? Muslim brotherhood is not
Speaker 1: the same thing as Islam. Pompeo to a right to
Speaker 1: bear arms tweet ts ten eleven Q ten eleven gun
Speaker 1: control coincidence. Miller Queen tweet t S one zero zero
Speaker 1: Q one d who is the Queen of England, secret Society,
Speaker 1: Evil Satan who follows spirit cooking represent Lynn Wood Cue
Speaker 1: is the truth Trump, It's going to take a little
Speaker 1: while to show pertaining to showing Pedo Biden's anti American policies.
Speaker 1: I didn't fun help by the way, that's exactly how
Speaker 1: it's written there. Very weird, Flynn. We need to renew
Speaker 1: our faith in God. The truth is going to come out,
Speaker 1: Ben Carson. We need to have strong beliefs to whether
Speaker 1: the storm that's coming, keep the faith we will win.
Speaker 1: End quote and breathe. As you can see, it is
Speaker 1: absolute madness, but this does make sense to the people
Speaker 1: in the group. Along with this message is over ten
Speaker 1: different images and videos. The images are mostly screenshots from
Speaker 1: various different que drops and Trump's statements. On the screenshot,
Speaker 1: someone has tried to decode secret messages that are clearly
Speaker 1: not there. There are arrows of different colors pointing here, there,
Speaker 1: and everywhere. There are numbers, labels. Is all a massive
Speaker 1: mess It's like Robert Langdon on meth and fair amine.
Speaker 1: But a lot of them are still going along with this.
Speaker 1: There are many comments on this saying yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: win where we go, one we go all we know
Speaker 1: the truth, that sort of thing they think. They're still
Speaker 1: moving ahead with the so called plan. Being on telegram
Speaker 1: has effectively lead the most hardcore of the hardcore Q
Speaker 1: and Ons to each other all in one place. Something
Speaker 1: interesting that seems to be happening now as well is
Speaker 1: how they're all being coaxed into even more extremist ideologies
Speaker 1: on telegram. Actual neo Nazis are coordinating with each other
Speaker 1: and infiltrating Q and on Telegram group chats, trying to
Speaker 1: push a more extremist ideology in the midst of the
Speaker 1: madness of Q. I spoke to an independent researcher and
Speaker 1: journalist named Matt Taylor who has been investigating various far
Speaker 1: right groups on telegram. He's witnessed firsthand how they're trying
Speaker 1: to turn Q and On's into something even more grotesque. Basically,
Speaker 1: you've seen like more far right groups kind of what
Speaker 1: trying to recruit from Q and on or what like
Speaker 1: what are they doing? I think they're from what I'm seeing,
Speaker 1: it looks like they're either trying to recruit from Q
Speaker 1: and On or use Q and on as a sort
Speaker 1: of vehicle for accelerationism, specifically the groups I monitor on
Speaker 1: there they are accelerationists in nature and they see Q
Speaker 1: and on. So they see Q and on as a
Speaker 1: larp basically, right, Um, Like, they see it as nonsense
Speaker 1: and they see it as sort of a just a
Speaker 1: way that's like creating even more I guess diversion amongst
Speaker 1: the right. So you mean like these these more hardline
Speaker 1: far right groups, they look at Q and on they're like,
Speaker 1: these people are idiots, but we can use it to
Speaker 1: our advantage of basically yeah, yeah, exactly that they I mean,
Speaker 1: they even they'll say it. They're like, yeah, it's absolutely
Speaker 1: a psio, but we can use this. And how do
Speaker 1: they use it? They use it by going in like
Speaker 1: you'll see, um, one of the members of the Chats
Speaker 1: forward a Q and on group and be like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: let's go in here. Look at what I said here
Speaker 1: about Jewish people. Let's really try to push that point. Like,
Speaker 1: so they're really trying to push the anti Semitism even further.
Speaker 1: And also like Holocaust denial, praise for Hitler, pretty much
Speaker 1: anything in that sort of vein. They're really trying to
Speaker 1: push that in these groups. And I think it's easier
Speaker 1: for them to do it on Telegram because there's not
Speaker 1: really a there's not really a risk of getting banned,
Speaker 1: you know, Like on Facebook, it would be really hard
Speaker 1: for them to do that because groups get banned very quickly. UM.
Speaker 1: And videos and articles and all that stuff about like
Speaker 1: Holocaust denial UM usually at least from what I've seen,
Speaker 1: get banned pretty quickly. Yeah. I mean they're going in
Speaker 1: there too for infiltration purposes, just to like, like I said,
Speaker 1: whether it be or whether it be for a recruitment,
Speaker 1: or just to like further like poke and prod Q
Speaker 1: and On into acting on some of these beliefs and everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And how effective are they that you seeing Q and
Speaker 1: On pushing back saying no, you know it because a
Speaker 1: lot of Q and On, you know, as insane as
Speaker 1: they were and as right wing as they were, they
Speaker 1: won't all far right or racist at the start, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as the media wanted to portray them as that,
Speaker 1: they a lot of them actually won't. You know, they're
Speaker 1: very lost, in my opinion, but they weren't all racists
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Um. Are you seeing like pushback
Speaker 1: from them or are they kind of getting with it now?
Speaker 1: Things are getting a little bit more bizarre in the ideology.
Speaker 1: There's pushback in these channels, but I mean there's also
Speaker 1: people saying like, oh, can you send me more resources
Speaker 1: on that? That's really interesting. I've never thought of that before.
Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty dangerous place to get into
Speaker 1: because they are taking like somebody will drop in a
Speaker 1: a bit shoot link to like a Hitler documentary and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know Hitler is not the bad guy or wasn't
Speaker 1: the bad guy here? He was actually doing good, And
Speaker 1: you know, some people will be like, well, no, he
Speaker 1: was terrible, And then other people are like, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a second, I want to get can I see
Speaker 1: some more information on that? Like that's kind of iopenning,
Speaker 1: and that's I don't know. I just think that's a
Speaker 1: very dangerous place or to the ant because it's you know,
Speaker 1: not they're not accepting it, but they're not necessarily rejecting
Speaker 1: it either, and that's a slippery place to be, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think not completely immediately rejecting Nazism is
Speaker 1: quite a step towards it exactly. And it's um I
Speaker 1: think The issue with Q and On being on telegram
Speaker 1: is I mean not to say that the anti Semitism
Speaker 1: hasn't always been there. It's you know, it's always been
Speaker 1: there in some degree, but it seems more pronounced, at
Speaker 1: least from my point of view, on telegram. As like
Speaker 1: I said, they don't have to worry about that band.
Speaker 1: But one of these groups I monitor, one of these
Speaker 1: like blatantly far right, like neo Nazi groups, were like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: go into this Q and on channel right now. They're
Speaker 1: so demoralized you can pretty much say whatever you want.
Speaker 1: They're not going to push back. He's like, I've been
Speaker 1: saying too semitic stuff all day long and they're not
Speaker 1: pushing back at all. It's great. And it's not just
Speaker 1: like they're not just doing it on telegram right Like
Speaker 1: I'll see um like even like Pole on four Chune,
Speaker 1: like the poll board, like they'll they'll be like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I posted this and this guy replied this. Can you
Speaker 1: guys help me come up with a reply to him
Speaker 1: to try to like pill this guy even further. And
Speaker 1: so you'll have like two or three people be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you should say this, or you should say this. And
Speaker 1: it kind of like create this like Frankenstein's monster of
Speaker 1: a response and put it on the board or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they do the same thing, and the Q and
Speaker 1: On chats as well. Um, So that's that's the thing
Speaker 1: to consider. When you see like somebody say something like
Speaker 1: super anty semitic or like full on like Nazi talking points,
Speaker 1: it might not just be from that one person. It
Speaker 1: might be from like a few people kind of collaborating
Speaker 1: on a response. So it seems that now Q and
Speaker 1: on is going to underground. It's being infiltrated by people
Speaker 1: who want to make it more extreme. Out of sight,
Speaker 1: out of mind. For some however, this could have a
Speaker 1: potentially catastrophic reaction later down the road. What's more, the
Speaker 1: Q and On ideology is evolving or devolving, depending on
Speaker 1: how you look at it. Since Trump lost the election,
Speaker 1: they've sort of broken off into two separate but also
Speaker 1: sometimes converging threads of thought. On one hand, there's the
Speaker 1: stop the Steel side of things, a concept the Trump
Speaker 1: family has promoted. Stop the Steel refers to the belief
Speaker 1: that the election was stolen from Trump by a deep
Speaker 1: state operation to rig voting machines. In Joe Biden's favor.
Speaker 1: This has been promoted heavily by eight chan's Ron Watkins,
Speaker 1: one of two men I believe was running the Q
Speaker 1: account for the most part of last year, as we
Speaker 1: documented in series one. Then, on the other hand, there's
Speaker 1: the Patriots are in control side of things. This is
Speaker 1: the theory that actually Joe Biden's victory was allowed to
Speaker 1: happen by Trump and Q. The idea is that Q
Speaker 1: and Trump are secretly in control. They genuinely believe that
Speaker 1: the Q team is working behind the scenes allowing everything
Speaker 1: to happen as it is as a means of allowing
Speaker 1: these so called bad guys to expose their evils further. Then,
Speaker 1: they still believe Trump will swoop in and take over.
Speaker 1: They believe that only then will there be enough evidence
Speaker 1: to show everyone that Queue was right all along. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they've shifted the goalposts to convince themselves and other people
Speaker 1: that this is all still part of the plan. They
Speaker 1: then think a new cuebact economic reform called Nassari take
Speaker 1: hold when Trump comes back. Will be covering that in
Speaker 1: detail in the future episode. One of the most add
Speaker 1: and Q and On supporters that I've been watching for
Speaker 1: years now is a man named Craig Mason. He had
Speaker 1: a large following on YouTube before his channel was shut
Speaker 1: down by them. Craig is one of the most optimistic, chirpy,
Speaker 1: and very naive Quanns out there. Mason honestly seems like
Speaker 1: without all of this nonsense, he'd probably be a genuinely
Speaker 1: fun guy to grab a drink with. He's not as
Speaker 1: embedded in the nastiness, perhaps as many of the other
Speaker 1: Quanns are. Unfortunately, he is completely and utterly wrapped up
Speaker 1: in Q still. I watched one of his recent videos
Speaker 1: on bits you a YouTube clone that is next to
Speaker 1: no community rules. This is what he had to say
Speaker 1: on one of his live streams. This was recorded January twelve,
Speaker 1: twenty one. He's reading an old Q drop from November one, seventeen.
Speaker 1: This is something a lot of the Q no ons
Speaker 1: are doing now that Q has vanished. They're reading over
Speaker 1: old Q drops and quote decoding them to retroactively give
Speaker 1: them meaning to what's currently happening now. So before before
Speaker 1: Trump was voted out of office, they were saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what Q is saying, this is the plan
Speaker 1: that is coming up. Now they're saying, actually, Q was
Speaker 1: giving us a code to deal with ourselves once he vanishes.
Speaker 1: When Trump is removed from office, it's quite unhinged. Have
Speaker 1: a listen. Okay, So how about this for a little
Speaker 1: potential decode action of an interesting post. If we look
Speaker 1: at this here, four carries and escorts in the Pacific,
Speaker 1: why is that relevant to prevent other state actors from
Speaker 1: attempting to harm us during this transition old transition or
Speaker 1: transitioning to a new administration, a second administration probably Trump,
Speaker 1: I think largely at the time, and everything is happening,
Speaker 1: not increased military movement. We've seen an increase military movement.
Speaker 1: Note and g National Guard deployment is starting tomorrow. Our
Speaker 1: National Guard deployment is going to start on Wednesday. We've
Speaker 1: already seen that they're making movements in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Note ffs, they're trying follow humor. I don't know. Human
Speaker 1: is prepared messages of reassurance based and what was dropped
Speaker 1: here to spread in different platforms. This has got to
Speaker 1: be it, right, This has got to be it. This
Speaker 1: has got to be it. What other timing can it be?
Speaker 1: The inauguration is in nine days, and I really think
Speaker 1: beyond that, it's got to be now Momophor procsven versus,
Speaker 1: I feel that my bones something is dropping. I could
Speaker 1: not agree more. Andy Girls says, how the heck did
Speaker 1: did you know this would all happen? I mean it
Speaker 1: is so spotted spot on it's insane. I know right,
Speaker 1: It's been planned for many years. So there we have it.
Speaker 1: As you can hear, they are desperately holding onto this
Speaker 1: idea that Q is alive and kicking planning and will
Speaker 1: eventually turn. It's actually quite sad to listen to Q
Speaker 1: and On has not gone away. It's just gone underground,
Speaker 1: and now it's more outlandish and potentially dangerous than ever.
Speaker 1: Q Clearance is brought to you by I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and cou Data Media. I'm Jake Hanrahan. You can find
Speaker 1: me online at Jake Underscore Hanrahan. That's h A N
Speaker 1: A h A N. This episode was produced by myself,
Speaker 1: with fact checking and additional research by Sarah Hightower. The
Speaker 1: music is by Sam Black and the sound was mixed
Speaker 1: by Thomas Griffin. That Splicing Block unperson of and Comperton
Speaker 1: of Burton actor