Key figure behind the theory QAnon is an information security analyst

Amazing: one of the main bigwigs behind the spread of the conspiracy movement QAnon is an expert in information security – and one of the good guys. Jason Gelinas, who was identified as responsible for the Qmap.pub website, he has worked as an analyst for large companies in the financial industry, including Citigroup (owner of Citibank) and Credit Suisse. Since the discovery, the portal has been taken down.

Qmap.pub was one of the main sources of content for QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory that has caused quite a stir in the United States. Above all, he published messages from Q, the anonymous person responsible for creating the theory. Gelinas’ role as developer and administrator of the page was discovered by the collective of fact checking Logically.

“I will not comment on this. I will not get involved. I want to stay away from that, ”Gelinas told Bloomberg in one of his few public appearances after the revelation. At the time, the executive – who resides in New Jersey – defended the QAnon, categorizing it as “A patriotic movement to save the country”. Since then, Gelinas has erased all of its social networks, including LinkedIn with its respectable history.

The analyst worked online under the nickname QAppAnon, maintaining a profile on Patreon and receiving at least $ 3,000 in donations monthly. He promised to soon launch Armor of God, a private social network for followers of the theory; its official description argued that the platform was “designed for patriots from around the world to create and share content, including prayers, news, memes and posts”.

Ok, what’s the deal?

Unless you’re not keeping up with what’s going on on the US political scene, you’ve certainly heard about QAnon. The conspiracy movement emerged on imageboards and gained strength even in the offline world, with protests and marches from its most fervent members.

In short, the theory supports a scenario in which left-wing political forces – including Democratic Party members like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – would be secretly controlling the US government, operating networks of pedophilia and Satanism. Donald Trump, for his part, would be waging a secret war against such evil forces, which is why he would have run for president in 2016.

It doesn’t take much to understand politics to understand the danger behind the QAnon theory: it has great power to influence the 2020 presidential elections, although this is being done based on the spread of disinformation. The movement spreads so much fake news and so much hate speech that both Facebook and Twitter have already drastically limited its reach on social networks.

The discovery that Gelinas had such a degree of involvement in the theory is curious, as it demonstrates that the movement, in fact, has highly trained professionals in its midst; because of its performance, it is very likely that the security of Qmap.pub was of a high level. So far, Citigroup and Credit Suisse have not commented on the matter, and the analyst remains “missing”.

Source: Bloomberg, Logically