Florida county GOP promoted, then deleted, conspiracy theory on Twitter

The Twitter account for a Florida county Republican Party tweeted and then later deleted a YouTube video explaining a conspiracy theory that’s gaining traction among prominent right-wing figures, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

The account for the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee posted a link to an explanatory video on the conspiracy theorist “QAnon” on July 4, according to the report.

“You may have heard rumors about QAnon, also known as Q, who is a mysterious anonymous inside leaker of deep state activities and counter activities by President Trump,” the tweet read.

The QAnon conspiracy theory refers to a figure on online message boards 4chan and 8chan who claims to be a high-level government official with a “Q” security clearance.{mosads}

The figure claims that President Trump is secretly fighting the “deep state.” The claims include an unfounded conspiracy theory that figures like Hillary Clinton are linked to pedophilia.

The conspiracy theory has been shared by some figures on the right, including Roseanne Barr and Alex Jones.

The tweet was reportedly deleted around July 15, more than a week after it was initially posted.

Here’s a screenshot of a local GOP party promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory, since they’ve deleted the tweet pic.twitter.com/TlRiw25T1C

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 15, 2018

The Times reported that the video was also posted on the party’s Facebook page, but that post also appears to have been removed.

Hillsborough County Republican Party Chairman Jim Waurishuk told the Times that the video was “informational … It’s certainly not something we promote or subscribe to.”

QAnon has been linked to violent incidents in the past, including one in which a man opened fire at a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant after reading about a conspiracy theory pushed by QAnon that the restaurant was being used by Clinton and her campaign to operate a child sex trafficking ring.