In June, Carol Schaeffer reported on a surge of participation in German online groups related to QAnon — an elaborate U.S.-focused conspiracy theory in which President Donald Trump is portrayed as fighting a secret network of powerful individuals involved in Satanic pedophile rings.

Now, a new report by Newsguard, a U.S.-based tech company that tracks online disinformation, shows that QAnon’s ideology is growing across Europe. Websites, pages, social media groups and accounts have appeared in countries such as the U.K., France and Italy, gathering large numbers of followers. 

Researchers concluded that themes central to QAnon, which was birthed with a post on the web forum 4Chan in late 2017, have been deftly fitted to various political environments overseas. Along with playing to widespread concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic, they state that the movement’s ability to tailor itself to different national audiences has played a significant part in its global growth.

“Early on, European websites raised questions about how QAnon theories applied to their countries, underlining that the deep state at the heart of these theories knew no borders. This allowed these theories to slowly morph, and target local representations of the ‘elites’ at the heart of Q’s narrative,”  the report reads.