Twitter Reinstates QAnon Kingpin Ron Watkins
THE TWITTER ACCOUNT of QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins has been restored to the platform after being banned in 2020 as part of an effort to curb the reach of the conspiracy on the website. Watkins’ return is the latest in a series of account reinstatements for extremists under the administration of Twitter owner Elon Musk.
The son of Jim Watkins, owner and administrator of the extremist message board 8kun (previously known as 8chan), Watkins was an instrumental figure in the proliferation and growth of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Serving as an official administrator to 8Kun from 2016 until a 2020 resignation, Ron Watkins oversaw the message board at the time when the figure of “Q” exploded into the online ecosystem.
Q, an anonymous figure claiming to hold high-level government classification, birthed a conspiracy theory on 4chan that the U.S. government was run by a deep state cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles that could only be defeated by Donald Trump. The covert poster quickly moved to 8kun, where “Q drops,” cryptic messages obsessively decoded by devotees, became the modus operandi.
(Backsliding? Pic related.)
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ron-watkins-qanon-kingpin-reinstated-twitter-1234658363/