In Trump's Twitter Feed: Conspiracy-Mongers, Racists and Spies
By MIKE McINTIRE, KAREN YOURISH and LARRY BUCHANAN
Nov. 2, 2019
In September, an obscure Twitter account promoting a fringe belief about an anti-Trump cabal within the government tweeted out a hashtag: #FakeWhistleblower. It was typical for the anonymous account, which traffics in far-right content and a conspiracy theory known as QAnon, some of whose adherents think that satanic pedophiles control the “deep state.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently labeled QAnon a potential domestic terror threat.
Still, that did not stop others, including a Republican congressional candidate, from quickly picking up the hashtag and tweeting it. Within a week, hundreds of QAnon believers and “MAGA” activists had joined in, posting memes and bogus reports to undermine the complaint by a government whistle-blower that President Trump had pressed Ukraine’s leader for dirt on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son.
Then Mr. Trump tweeted the hashtag himself.
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By retweeting suspect accounts, seemingly without regard for their identity or motives, he has lent credibility to white nationalists, anti-Muslim bigots and obscure QAnon adherents like VB Nationalist, an anonymous account that has promoted a hoax about top Democrats worshiping the Devil and engaging in child sex trafficking.
“I’ve been retweeted by the President of the United States, President Trump!” replied VB Nationalist, who gained thousands of followers after the high-level boost and took it as a sign of encouragement, adding, “Tell me again, how he doesn’t care about us.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-disinformation.html