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Anonymous ID: 8bdd59 Oct. 20, 2020, 1:23 p.m. No.11174602   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Patreon is profiting from QAnon

At least 14 creators are monetizing the violence-linked conspiracy theory – and Patreon is taking a cut too

WRITTEN BY OLIVIA LITTLE

PUBLISHED 10/20/20 2:39 PM EDT

 

Patreon a platform that provides “content creators” with tools to run membership-based subscription services and earn a monthly income is helping QAnon influencers monetize the dangerous conspiracy theory. And it appears the company is cashing in too, taking a 5-12% cut depending on the user’s payment plan even though the content seemingly violates the platform’s terms of use.

 

Media Matters has identified 14 prominent QAnon content creators on Patreon who are profiting by peddling the violent conspiracy theory.

 

Patreon’s terms of use conflict with QAnon content

According to Patreon’s terms of use, creators with a “known affiliation with violent or dangerous groups” or “violent hate groups” are not eligible to receive funds through the platform, “no matter the purpose or apparent intention of their Patreon page.” Additionally, “any creator praising or actively supporting these groups or their leaders won’t be allowed on Patreon.”

 

Patreon’s policy also encompasses calls for violence and glorification of groups “known to support ideologies that would be classified as hate speech” as grounds for removal from the platform.

 

Even more, the platform claims to “proactively look at some pages and posts on Patreon and review reported pages to identify potential violations of our guidelines,” which “may include looking at what is supported by funds received through Patreon.”

 

“We can disable your account at our discretion,” Patreon warns creators.

 

The QAnon conspiracy theory seemingly violates Patreon’s terms of service. It is centered around claims that President Donald Trump is secretly fighting against members of the “deep state” and “pedophiles,” who will supposedly be rounded up and executed soon. These threats and calls for violence targeting Trump’s political opponents are often wildly anti-Semitic. This unfounded conspiracy theory promoting imminent violence against the president’s enemies has been classified by the FBI as a domestic terror threat and has been directly linked to multiple killings, a kidnapping, and even terrorism.

 

The majority of the QAnon “creators” on Patreon identified below have already been banned from other social media platforms because of the inherent threats, repeated acts of violence, and frequent misinformation campaigns closely associated with the conspiracy theory. The Daily Dot reported on the prevalence of QAnon content on Patreon in August, but the platform has yet to make substantial changes to enforce its policies against supporters of the destructive conspiracy theory.

 

How Patreon profits from QAnon

Despite the blatant violence and frequent racism associated with QAnon, Patreon has yet to crack down on promoters of the conspiracy theory on its platform. In fact, the company is even profiting from it.

 

Patreon provides very little transparency about how much money QAnon influencers are taking in or how many “patrons” are subscribed to their platforms because creators can choose to restrict the information visible on their page. However, according to Patreon’s platform fee policy, the company takes 5%, 8%, or 12% of the creator’s monthly income depending on their payment plan, as well as varying “payment processing fees” and “payout fees.” Creators active before May 2019 are held to a flat pricing fee of 5%.

 

For instance, QAnon account RedPill78 was recently removed from YouTube but has 674 supporters on Patreon and reports receiving $4,065 per month. This comes to approximately $48,780 per year, of which a minimum of $2,439 goes to Patreon.

 

SGT Report, another QAnon creator that was recently removed from YouTube, has 1,445 patrons with a fee of $5 per month, meaning the creator is accumulating $7,225 per month and roughly $86,700 per year. Under its platform fee policy, Patreon’s annual minimum cut is $4,335.

 

It is impossible to provide an accurate total figure for how much money Patreon is making as a platform from the conspiracy theory because many QAnon creators have their total patron numbers or monthly incomes hidden. However, it is clear that Patreon has enabled QAnon influencers to both spread the dangerous conspiracy theory and profit while doing it. Even worse, Patreon is seemingly ignoring these creators’ clear terms-of-use violations while taking a cut of those profits from QAnon followers.

 

Patreon must enforce its own terms of service and remove QAnon-affiliated creators or risk being further implicated in the spread of the violent conspiracy theory. This action is long overdue.

MORE AT LINK:

https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/patreon-profiting-qanon

Anonymous ID: 8bdd59 Oct. 20, 2020, 1:26 p.m. No.11174634   🗄️.is 🔗kun

After Refusing to Upload Several Joe Rogan Episodes, Spotify Rips

Down Multiple QAnon Podcasts

Dylan Smith October 20, 2020

 

After opting not to upload Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) episodes involving controversial guests like Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, Spotify has ripped down multiple QAnon podcasts.

Following a recent report about the presence of QAnon podcasts on Spotify, company officials removed four programs – X22 Report, Praying Medic, Indigenous Mike, and Pardon My American – from the streaming service. The podcasts no longer appear in the platform’s search results, though it’s unclear whether other QAnon shows remain available to stream, or whether QAnon programs will now be barred from Spotify at the outset.

 

Ahead of the quick-approaching presidential election, other prominent companies have also taken steps to curb the prevalence and influence of those associated with the three-year-old conspiracy theory. Facebook banned all QAnon pages and groups two weeks back, on the heels of numerous case-by-case account prohibitions earlier this year. And YouTube, for its part, took aim at users and videos associated with the entity “by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence” on Monday, October 5th.

 

For Spotify, which has decidedly less experience in content moderation than YouTube and Facebook, the move is indicative of the far-reaching challenges to come as more podcasters – and podcast fans – begin to utilize the platform. And in an immediate sense, the Stockholm-based streaming service is already grappling with free expression-related difficulties.

Recent weeks’ Joe Rogan Experience headlines have largely overshadowed the initially noted absence of controversial episodes on Spotify, though both appear to stem from the same underlying disagreement and criticism (from some listeners and employees themselves). Stated concisely, the overarching causes of the pushback against JRE episode 1,509, with author Abigail Shrier, are set to generate additional conflict moving forward – heightening the significance of Spotify’s content-moderation role.

 

More broadly, the company isn’t without similar obstacles on the music front, which also seem poised to grow in quantity and scope. A Jewish advocacy group asked Spotify CEO Daniel Ek last month to remove the antisemitic music of rapper Freeze Corleone. Thus far, the popular (in the artist’s native France) content has remained live despite containing lyrics such as “Build an empire like young Adolf, determined with great ambitions like young Adolf.”

 

On an alike, albeit much lighter note, searching for “Joe Rogan Experience” on Spotify returns results including a two-minute song (by one “Best UFO Footage”) of the exact same name. The group doesn’t seem to have a social media profile or an official website, and the placement has undoubtedly brought with it considerable exposure.

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2020/10/20/spotify-removes-qanon-podcasts/

Anonymous ID: 8bdd59 Oct. 20, 2020, 1:34 p.m. No.11174799   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4834 >>4850 >>4909

QAnon: What you should know about this unhinged, pro-Trump conspiracy theory

This crazy fringe movement continues to grow as the presidential election nears.

Oscar Gonzalez

Oct. 20, 2020 10:52 a.m. PT

 

QAnon, a conspiracy theory that began on anonymous message boards and believes US President Donald Trump is fighting a battle against evil, has jumped from the online world to everyday life. Now the broad and baseless hoax is influencing politics, with dozens of congressional candidates and 50% of Trump supporters believing the Democratic party is involved with child sex-trafficking. Just to be absolutely clear: These are bogus claims.

 

The conspiracy theory appears to have started in 2017 when an online poster using the handle "Q" claimed ties to President Trump. Other conspiracy theorists found and amplified Q's posts, known as Q drops, expanding the audience for the cryptic messages. Three years on, QAnon continues to grow at a quick clip, and the FBI says it poses a threat to the nation.

Trump says he has no knowledge of the sprawling conspiracy theory. "I just don't know about QAnon," he told an audience during an NBC town hall on Oct.15.

 

Understanding QAnon requires a look at where the conspiracy theory started, what its followers believe and how it's provoked acts of violence in the real world. The hoax has troubled lawmakers enough to prompt a bipartisan resolution condemning it.

 

Here's what you need to know about the weird world of QAnon.

 

QAnon sounds wild. What can you tell me about it?

QAnon is an online conspiracy theory that claims Trump is waging a secret war against a deep state of Democratic elites and Hollywood stars who are pedophiles and Satan worshipers. Cannibalism is in there someplace too. Really, that's what they believe.

 

The conspiracy theory dates back to October 2017, when an anonymous post on a message board said extradition agreements had been struck with several countries "in case of cross border run" by Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic rival for the White House in 2016. (That run still hasn't happened.) The person or group behind the post eventually came to be known as "Q," which is where the conspiracy theory's name comes from.

 

Since then, the conspiracy theory has gotten wider and weirder. It's now folded in former President Barack Obama and billionaire philanthropist George Soros, both of whom, among other well-known figures, are frequent subjects of online conspiracy theories.

 

By the way, Q is a reference to the highest security level clearance at the Department of Energy. That's the department that oversees nuclear weapons. Q claims to work in close proximity to Trump and the inner circle of his administration.

 

Does anyone know who Q is?

Other than Q, not that we know of.

 

Of course, more than one person has claimed to be Q, with one theory saying the mysterious figure is a time traveler. (Even some QAnon followers, who've proved they'll believe just about anything, think that's a bit too crazy.)

 

Paul Furber, a conspiracy theorist from Johannesburg, has been identified as possibly being the original Q poster because of an appearance he made on the Alex Jones-hosted InfoWars TV show a few months after the first post. The appearance on the conspiracy-minded program, which has a following among Trump supporters, was key to bringing QAnon from online message boards to a more mainstream audience.

 

Jim Watkins, the owner of the 8kun message board, is another person often speculated to be the mysterious figure, because Q's posts migrated to his site not long after they first appeared. Fredrick Brennan, who created the predecessor of 8kun, says the message board's authentication system, known as secure tripcodes, could prove who's using the handle. In the case of 8chan and 8kun, a secure tripcode is verified by the site's server and can identify a user via a specific number within a post, even though the message boards let users stay anonymous. Watkins has administrative privileges at 8kun and could use the Q-specific tripcode at any time.

 

Neither Furber nor Watkins responded to requests for comment. Neither has made a public statement about possible involvement in the conspiracy theory, though Watkins was responsible for creating the QAnon SuperPAC.

MORE AT LINK:

https://www.cnet.com/news/qanon-what-you-should-know-about-this-unhinged-pro-trump-conspiracy-theory/

Anonymous ID: 8bdd59 Oct. 20, 2020, 1:38 p.m. No.11174925   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4943 >>4945 >>4960 >>4965 >>4994 >>5017 >>5042 >>5089

QAnon followers attack California State Senator Scott Wiener

Hosted by Madeleine Brand Oct. 20, 2020

 

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill authored by Scott Wiener that ended discrimination against LGBTQ young people on the sex offender registry. “All we were doing was saying, ‘Let's treat everyone exactly the same way that straight kids are already treated.’ QAnon latched onto this legislation. And people started to spread misinformation that we were somehow ‘legalizing pedophilia.’ That was absolutely false,” says Scott Wiener.

Photo courtesy of the Office of Scott Wiener

 

Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory are targeting incumbent lawmakers with vicious online attacks and death threats. California State Senator Scott Wiener is one of those lawmakers. He talks to KCRW about his op-ed titled “What I Learned When QAnon Came for Me.”

https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/covid-19-politics-blm-forty-year-old-version

Anonymous ID: 8bdd59 Oct. 20, 2020, 1:47 p.m. No.11175109   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5157 >>5196

>>11174834

My personal favorite is Death Cult! kek

I cannot find the Q anon death cult story but here is a TRUMP death cult story.

So, are you in Anon or what?! :D

 

The Trumpist Death Cult

The president is an egotistical, narcissistic shaman who promises his adoring worshipers that he will right all wrongs.

by BRIAN KAREM OCTOBER 10, 2020 5:30 AM

 

In 1993, during the Branch Davidian standoff at the Mount Carmel compound outside Waco, Texas, in between doing live-shots for Fox News and Sky News, I met a curiosity-seeker.

 

He stood among the members of the press, general public, and even t-shirt vendors—I still have a hat that says “Waco: We Ain’t Coming Out”—who arrived daily to try and get a closer look at the madness inside the compound.

 

“What makes someone want to join a cult like this?” the man asked me.

 

That question has stuck with me—years after the ATF raid and two-month FBI siege that culminated in gunfire and flames and scores of dead.

 

The study of Koresh’s death cult was intense. The Waco Tribune-Herald ran a series of investigative reports on the Branch Davidians and David Koresh called “The Sinful Messiah,” exposing allegations of Koresh abusing children and committing statutory rape, as well as fathering several children from a variety of women and girls, some as young as 13, among the Branch Davidians who lived with him.

 

“I don’t think he was a madman,” Bob Ricks, the FBI’s main media spokesman throughout the standoff, said of Koresh 25 years later. “I think probably the best description of him is a master manipulator.”

 

H.L. Mencken, unflinchingly clear-eyed, said that every great religion was susceptible to cults. Mystics, he wrote, drive many cults and the “essence of mysticism is that it breaks down all barriers between the devotee and his god, and thereby makes the act of worship a direct and personal matter.”

 

David Koresh did that.

 

Jim Jones did that.

 

So does Donald Trump.

 

Trump is, in his own perverse way, one of the greatest mystics of the 21st century. He is a masterful manipulator who told everyone from the beginning of his political career how he could shoot someone in front of witnesses and not lose a voter. He also explained that he calls the news media liars so people won’t believe us and will believe him.

 

Like every mystic, Trump adheres to magic over science. When pressed about climate change, he said the scientists don’t know. When pressed about the pandemic he said it would magically disappear. He often refuses to wear a mask and may be responsible for as many as 40 people in and around the White House becoming infected by the coronavirus. Like the huckster selling snake oil or the phony shaman dancing around a fire, Trump proclaimed himself feeling “great” in a video he tweeted to his millions of adoring fans. His magic is that of the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, and few who love him would dare pull back the curtain.

MORE AT LINK:

https://thebulwark.com/the-trumpist-death-cult/