SC’s Graham calls QAnon ‘batshit crazy’ as handful of GOP candidates back group
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is running for reelection in November, characterized the conspiracy theory group QAnon as “batshit crazy,” as some Republican congressional candidates support the group.
Graham made the comments in an interview with Vanity Fair contributor Peter Hamby for his Snapchat show Good Luck America. The interview touched upon how to stop groups from spreading unfounded conspiracy theories online.
“Well, QAnon is batshit crazy. Crazy stuff. Inspiring people to violence,“ Graham said. “I think it is a platform that plays off people’s fears, that compels them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. And it’s very much a threat. But there are a lot of websites out there. How do you live in this world?”
QAnon supporters have appeared at President Donald Trump’s rallies. QAnon believes Trump is destined to expose a group of pedophiles and Democratic politicians running child sex trafficking ring and secretly controlling the U.S. government.
QAnon theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests have been spreading on social media networks and message boards. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter have begun removing the posts and banning QAnon accounts.
Trump said during a recent White House briefing he is not too familiar with the right-wing conspiracy theory.
“I’ve heard these are people that love our country … so I don’t know really anything about it, other than they do supposedly like me,” he said, according to CBS News..
According to Axios, at least 11 Republican candidates have backed QAnon, including at least one who said she is attending Trump’s speech on Thursday at White House.
On Wednesday, Utah Republican Congressional candidate Burgess Owens, who appeared on a YouTube show connected with the QAnon group, spoke during the RNC. Owens has said he does not believe in the conspiracy theory, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
The RNC removed speaker Mary Ann Mendoza from Tuesday’s lineup after she retweeted out an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory with ties to QAnon, according to CNN.
Graham said groups like QAnon, which the FBI has labeled as domestic terrorist group, and social media platforms that allow them to spread fake stories, should be held to the same standards as news media.
“So under ... [the Communications Decency Act], a social media company can’t be sued for the content that they carry. I get slandered all the time on Twitter and other outlets,” Graham said. “If the New York Times printed an article, I could sue them. If CNN said something about me that wasn’t true, I could sue them. But Twitter and all these other sites can pass on the most scandalous information, you have no recourse.”
Graham said the answer to limiting the spread of false information online is to remove and taking away any kind of liability protection for social media networks for allowing the spread of the information. “If you’re going to have a social media site like QAnon or anything else, you spread this stuff at your own peril.”
Graham spoke about theory spread by QAnon that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C. A man read about, bought an AR-15 into the restaurant and started shooting.
“Thank God nobody got killed. But the pizza owner, under my theory, could sue QAnon for passing along garbage,” Graham said. “That’s a pretty dramatic step. But the only way I know to make people more responsible who run these websites is allow lawsuits when they go too far.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 1:02 PM.
