How Trump's Social Media Platform Promotes QAnon

Through reposts and other methods, Truth Social has become an active booster of the extremist movement

- JACK BREWSTER, COALTER PALMER, AND SHAYEZA WALID

BANNED BY TWITTER AND OTHER social media outlets, QAnon adherents have flocked to Truth Social, former President Donald Trump's social media platform, which bills itself as a free-speech haven. A NewsGuard review found that Trump and top executives working for the platform actively promote these QAnon accounts.

QAnon supporters contend, falsely, that Democrats and the "deep state" operate a network of child sex traffickers Trump and an anonymous government operative known as "Q" are engaged in a struggle to take down. QAnon has been linked to numerous violent incidents, including the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; an armed standoff at the Hoover Dam in 2018; and the 2021 killing of two infant children by their father, who allegedly told prosecutors that he had been "enlightened by QAnon and Illuminati conspiracy theories."

Using their Truth Social accounts with large followings, Trump and other Truth Social leaders and funders regularly boost QAnon accounts and messages on the fledgling platform, NewsGuard found. This includes the CEO of Truth Social, Devin Nunes, a former Republican member of Congress, as well as Patrick Orlando, chief executive of Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that funds Truth Social. (SPACs are shell corporations that raise capital by listing on a stock exchange.)

NewsGuard found that Truth Social has verified 47 QAnon-promoting accounts, all with more than 10,000 followers. According to Truth Social Support, the platform awards a red verification badge to users who are "highly searched for public figure[s]," just as Twitter does with its blue check, with the verifications signaling a level of author authenticity.