QAnon’s Rise in Japan Shows Conspiracy Theory’s Global Spread

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From Bloomberg News

QAnon’s days as a solely U.S. phenomenon are over.

The conspiracy theory’s foothold in Japan -- home to one of its most active networks outside the U.S. -- demonstrates how the movement can be made palatable in a range of countries as it gains popularity from Europe to Brazil.

Research by social media analytics firm Graphika Inc. shows the Japan-based QAnon community is among the most developed international chapters, with distinct terminology, influencers, and behaviors -- such as idolizing Michael Flynn, a former U.S. national security adviser in the Trump administration.

“What we’re seeing now is an adaptation of U.S. QAnon taking root in European countries, whereas in Japan and Brazil, it does seem to be slightly more independent and self-sustaining as an ideology,” said Melanie Smith, head of analysis at Graphika. She attributes the increasing prominence of QAnon to the U.S. election and the pandemic.

This internationalization presents an uphill battle for social media companies already facing increased pressure from governments to combat disinformation on their platforms in English, let alone myriad other languages. President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election to Joe Biden has prompted many of his supporters to say without proof that the election was stolen. Lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and its GOP allies have failed in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona as the legal team has failed to produce any evidence of widespread fraud that would change the results. However Trump supporters’ accusations continue, potentially giving fresh life to conspiracy theories such as QAnon after the president leaves office.

Japan’s community is perhaps most notable for its reverence of Flynn. He only served in the Trump administration for 24 days and resigned after acknowledging he had misled Vice President Mike Pence over communications with the Russian ambassador; he later pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about their conversation and was pardoned by Trump last week. The Japanese group even styles itself QArmyJapanFlynn after the former general who popularized “digital soldiers,” a term many Q supporters use to describe themselves.

Flynn follows several Japanese QAnon accounts, including @okabaeri9111 -- the Twitter linchpin of the community. The handle run by Eri Okabayashi has more than 80,000 followers, and says it is both the founder of QArmyJapanFlynn and sole official translator of Q content into Japanese. The most popular video translation of Q content on an associated Youtube account had more than 200,000 views before it was removed for violating the site’s content policy. By comparison, two Brazilian accounts Graphika described as “highly followed” in its August report had 54,400 followers and 16,800 followers at that time. The U.K. Facebook groups highlighted in the report had 10,000 to 11,000 members.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-29/qanon-s-rise-in-japan-shows-conspiracy-theory-s-global-spread