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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMISSION ACCOMPLISHED? How QAnon Undermines Legitimate Anti-Trafficking Efforts
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The child sex trade is a global crisis. Far-right conspiracy theorists are harassing, distracting and intimidating the organizations fighting to end it.
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Child sex trafficking is a dire problem: It happens in all 50 states, almost always at the hands of people the victims know and trust. But QAnon in its virulent campaign to expose a supposed underground pedophilia ring run by the liberal elite is exacerbating the very crisis it claims to be fighting. As the movement appropriates and sensationalizes the issue to recruit more followers into its conspiratorial web, legitimate anti-trafficking organizations are suffering significant collateral damage.
HuffPost spoke to employees at child welfare groups across the U.S. and beyond about the burdens that QAnon has placed upon them and their work. For many, debunking viral misinformation, mining through unhinged tips and warding off mob harassment has become part of the job detracting from their ability to actually help kids in need.
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Targeted Harassment
Since its origins on 4chan in late 2017, QAnon has burgeoned from an obscure online fringe group chasing grassroots donations and digital ad revenue into a powerful (and, at times, violent) movement that has infiltrated the political mainstream, scored a tacit endorsement from Trump and amassed an enormous following both online and offline. Now, as it channels its outsize influence to spread false and alarmist trafficking-related conspiracy theories, a handful of anti-trafficking groups have publicly condemned it.
Polaris, which runs the national human trafficking hotline, warned in July that unsubstantiated claims can spin out of control and mislead well-meaning people into doing more harm than good. In August, after the century-old charity Save the Children issued a public statement to distance itself from QAnons leeched Save Our Children front, the nonprofit World Without Exploitation followed suit, casting QAnon promoters as grifters with a hero complex. Days later, KidSafe Foundation denounced them as parasites who threaten to tarnish our reputations and harm our good works.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-qanon-impedes-legitimate-anti-trafficking-groups_n_5f4eacb9c5b69eb5c03592d1
Perhaps this is the whole intent of that group -- to protect the Jeffrey Epsteins of the world.
Who knows, some of them could be pedos themselves and are trying to mask their behavior.
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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? How QAnon Undermines Legitimate Anti-Trafficking Efforts (Original Post)
TheBlackAdder
Sep 2020
OP
To ellaborate: If CPS states a group 'protecting children' shields pedos, they ARE the Problem.
TheBlackAdder
Sep 2020
#2
Sedona
(3,769 posts)1. To the greatest page nt
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TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)2. To ellaborate: If CPS states a group 'protecting children' shields pedos, they ARE the Problem.
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Normal people, who think they are doing right, and find that their actions are actually having the opposite effect, especially dealing with the harm to children would either reassess their actions and behaviors or they would terminate the group. If QAnon is actually causing CPS agencies to be flooded with bogus calls, to the point where they cannot perform their primary tasks, and they are alerted to that--they are in effect aiding and abetting the pedophiles by continuing their actions.
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