For the second time this month, QAnon believers hosted a rally in Phoenix to demand an end to child trafficking. Several congressional candidates nationwide have endorsed QAnon in the past and are now on the November ballot.
The FBI has labeled QAnon a potential domestic terrorist threat and several violent incidents around the country have been attributed to QAnon believers.
“It’s very serious we treat this as a risk, an internal domestic risk,” said Claire Wardle, US Director of First Draft, a nonprofit that educates against harmful and false information online (editors note: First Draft provides training for TEGNA newsrooms, including 12 News). “Over the three years it has grown and people who will be watching this (news story) may have family members who follow QAnon, who read posts from QAnon.”
On Saturday, Aug. 22, about 50 people gathered at a Phoenix park with signs decrying child trafficking and kidnapping. The event was labeled online as “A Global Walk For The Awareness of Child Exploitation and Trafficking” and was hosted by a group calling itself Freedom For Children.
But rally-goers wore t-shirts with QAnon mottos and rhetoric -- including some of its non-child trafficking conspiracy theories.
