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Hey readers! Andrew here. Welcome to the Thursday edition of Internet Insider.
Our top stories today include reports about Donald Trump Jr. launching a news aggregation app and a TikToker who is going viral for speaking about her alleged time working at Theranos.
Meanwhile, our Politics Reporter Claire dives deep into the social media history of Ron Watkins in her “Dirty Delete” column down below.
Let’s dive right in.
— A.W.
BREAK THE INTERNET
FAKE(?) NEWS: Donald Trump Jr., is reportedly jumping into the news industry. He is launching a news aggregator app called “MxM News.” The announcement was met with mockery in the wake of the bumpy launch of his father’s social media app Truth Social.
SPILLING TEA: A TikToker is going viral for sharing stories about her time allegedly working for Theranos, the fraudulent blood-testing company headed by Elizabeth Holmes. In the videos, she calls The Dropout, the series based on the rise and fall of Holmes, “pretty factual.”
ANTI-UNION: Starbucks workers in Kansas have announced a strike due to ongoing conflicts with management over unionization efforts. A video has gone viral about the strike effort, with workers saying they’ve faced retaliation over their attempts to unionize.
The man whose claim to fame is (probably) being the person behind QAnon is running for Congress
Ron Watkins is running as a Republican in Arizona’s second congressional district. He made it on the ballot earlier this week.
Though he’s long denied it, most believe that Watkins played “Q,” the character that QAnon conspiracy theorists believe was a secret government insider feeding them clues on 8kun about a fictitious cabal of satanic pedophiles who run the world and ritualistically sacrifice and eat children.
In what few see as coincidence, whoever pretended to be Q fell silent around the time former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, which was around the same time Watkins departed 8kun, his father’s company.
Perhaps weary of wooing millions behind a pseudonym, Watkins proceeded to grow his personal profile.
Watkins, who uses the handle Code Monkey Z, initially turned to Twitter to spread his wild theories about election fraud and false flags by the “fedbois.”
The good times didn’t last, however. Mere months later, Watkins was booted from Twitter amid its widespread QAnon crackdown in the wake of the Capitol riot.
Today you can find him on Telegram and Gettr. There’s a dormant Code Monkey Z account on the resurrected Parler. Watkins has also posted about being in the seemingly endless queue for Truth Social, so at some point he’ll probably be on there, too.
Watkins is particularly prolific on Telegram, where he has 400,000 subscribers across two channels.
Many of his posts resemble Q’s open-ended questions that let the reader decide what they mean in a sort of choose-your-own-adventure conspiracy Easter egg hunt.
On Telegram, Watkins recently wrote, “Who cut off power to Chernobyl? Why would they cut off the power? What is a false flag?” His followers enthusiastically come up with various theories to answer his questions. “False flag” is a common response.
In recent months, Watkins has also posted about satanism and pedophiles, particular obsessions among QAnon followers. On Monday, he wrote in a seemingly approving tone about a woman who said she’d shoot her kids if they voted for Democrats. QAnon followers are similarly fixated on executing their enemies.
As a candidate for congress, Watkins seems to be running on the simplest of platforms: stop tyranny and give me money. He’ll take cash, check, or cryptocurrency (because of course he will).
Even with all his followers, Watkins hasn’t been particularly successful raising funds. Perhaps that’s because he could kindly be described as less than compelling in real life. Less generous descriptions include “the verve and charisma of a single subject forum moderator” and less charismatic than “a literal piece of soggy white bread.”
The Arizona congressional primary will be held on Aug. 2.
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BEFORE YOU GO
If you use Poshmark, the popular resale app for clothing, you might want to pay attention to this viral video. In the video, a TikToker warns viewers about how the “most common” scam on the platform works.
