Have you shared SaveTheChildren content? The movement is meant to end child sex trafficking, but instead, it's been hijacked by QAnon conspiracy theorists.
QAnon is exploiting fears about the vulnerability of children and latching onto legitimate efforts to fight child abuse to push these allegations into everyday people’s social media feeds, said Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at the University of Maryland who leads a domestic radicalization team.
But the hijacking of the #SaveTheChildren hashtag on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is exposing unsuspecting Americans to QAnon ideology. Some are turning out to rallies in cities across the country to call for an end to child exploitation. According to data prepared for USA TODAY by media intelligence company Zignal Labs, Save the Children has received nearly 2.6 million mentions on Twitter since June 1.Melissa Ryan is CEO of CARD Strategies, a firm that helps organizations counter disinformation and extremism. Starting about six weeks ago, she began seeing members of her own family who had never mentioned child trafficking pipe up about it.
The phenomenon reminds her of rallies during the 2016 election for “Pizzagate,” a debunked conspiracy theory alleging that a secret cabal of elites operated a child sex trafficking ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant. A North Carolina man traveled there and fired an assault weapon, endangering families and children.
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