Recent media coverage of QAnon, the false conspiracy theory masterminded by a shadowy figure known as “Q,” has focused on a new HBO documentary said to unmask “Q” as Ron Watkins, son of Jim Watkins,an internet entrepreneur Mother Jones accuses of hosting child porn sites (read story here).
Is QAnon a cover for distributing child porn? Interesting question.
As for who “Q” is, Ron Watkins is a plausible suspect. He hosts the websites from which QAnon took off. But Wikipedia posits (here) it’s “likely that ‘Q’ has become a group of people acting under the same name,” adding a “stylometric analysis has suggested that two people likely wrote Q’s posts during different periods.”
(Update, 2/19/22: Another group of “linguistic detectives” also has concluded Ron Watkins is “Q,” having taken over from Paul Furber, a South African software developer, in 2018; see story here.)
In October 2020, Mother Jones published an investigation “revealing that [Jim] Watkins’s web company had hosted scores of domains featuring child sex abuse material themes … there was no question or debate that Watkins was working to make money off of hosting scores of child porn-themed domains.”
Mother Jones says whether Jim Watkins did anything illegal is undetermined, but, “There’s Watkins’s apparent hypocrisy and how it undermines his credibility as a leading player in a purportedly anti-pedophila crusade.”
Both the Watkins have denied being “Q” or knowing who it is. But the maker of the HBO documentary believes Ron Watkins inadvertently admitted it during a filming segment. You can read the details in the Wikipedia article, along with how QAnon has evolved into a Trump-aligned political cult since its emergence on a Watkins-hosted website in 2017, approximately coinciding with Trump’s ascension to the presidency.
It would be ironic indeed if all those people waving “Save the Children” signs are dupes of a family that makes its money by hosting child porn websites, as Mother Jones’ investigative reporting suggests.
“Saving the children” (photo above), on its face, is a noble cause. And indeed there are child victims of sex trafficking, although not in the vast numbers QAnon followers believe, and law enforcement has been on it for a long time. Let the law enforcers do their work, and report any abuse you’re aware of — that’s how responsible people should respond to it.
Joining a political hate movement based on lies (Hillary Clinton does not kill babies and drink their blood!) doesn’t “save” children at risk. It only throws more gasoline on our nation’s raging political fires. QAnon adherents are just plain crazy. The movement has drawn some of them into criminal behavior; “Q” symbols and signs were prominently displayed at the Capitol insurrection, and some of those people are now facing prosecution. And if Mother Jones is right, their perhaps-not-so-anonymous messiah just might be a child porn trafficker.