Media Matters: “Less than three years after it started on an anonymous far-right message board, the QAnon conspiracy theory was being praised by the president of the United States. On August 19, a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he had anything to say to followers of QAnon. Speaking in the White House briefing room, Trump said, ‘I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,’ adding that it was ‘gaining in popularity’ and consisted of ‘people that love our country.'”

“2020 was a significant year for many reasons: a pandemic, the election of a new president, a reckoning over systemic racism. But it was also a breakout year for QAnon, a categorically false and extreme conspiracy theory that has been tied to multiple acts of violence and that worried the FBI enough that in 2019 the bureau specifically mentioned it internally as a potential domestic terrorism threat. What started in far-right spaces online gained widespread prominence and attention, in part thanks to a long lack of a response from – and even algorithmic promotion by – various social media platforms. As a result, QAnon has become a significant player in American politics and discourse, harmed our ability to contain a deadly pandemic, and left destroyed lives and families in its wake. And that outcome should provide a harsh lesson about allowing misinformation to spread unchecked across social media platforms.”