⁍ QAnon is a virtual cult that began in late 2017.

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⁍ The most basic QAnon belief casts President Trump as the hero in a fight against the ‘deep state’
There aren’t solid estimates for the number of QAnon followers worldwide, but it’s clear their ranks are growing.

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– It’s a cult, it’s online, and it’s spreading fast. CNN takes a look at QAnon, a virtual cult that began late last year and is now believed to number in the tens of thousands around the world. It’s “a convoluted and ever-changing web of beliefs which branch off from the central worldview,” says the head of a company that tracks disinformation. “In this case, that includes things like members of the supposed cabal also worshipping Satan, and JFK Jr. having faked his 1999 death in a plane crash to escape the deep state plotters.” The most basic QAnon belief is that President Trump is the hero in a fight against the “deep state” and a cabal of Democratic politicians and celebrities who abuse children. It features an anonymous government insider called “Q” who purportedly shares secret information about that fight via cryptic online posts. CNN’s investigation found at least 12.8 million interactions on QAnon-related Facebook pages and groups based only outside the US between the beginning of the year and the last week of September. Jitarth Jadeja, 32, found QAnon after Bernie Sanders lost the 2016 presidential election. He liked what Sanders had to say about inequality and his “anti-establishment sentiment,” but then Trump won. “That kind of really kicked it all off for me,” Jadeja says. His biggest regret? Sharing the conspiracy theory with his father.