Q revealed? HBO documentary names potential leader of QAnon conspiracy

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The film, Q: Into The Storm, which airs on HBO Max on 21 March, identifies two possible figures: Jim Watkins and his son Ron, whose now-defunct anonymous online message board, 8chan, was where the conspiracy first began to grow. “Im not Q and I have never had private correspondence with Q,” Ron Watkins told The Daily Beast in November, after resigning from the message board. “My resignation from the project has nothing to do with Q.” Jim Watkins was a former US army helicopter mechanic who made a fortune living in the Philippines running a series of internet ventures including pornography sites and 8chan, a message board where users could anonymously post whatever they wanted, which often devolved into shocking racism and graphic violence. Mr Brennan, the coder, has suggested the Watkins cultivated Q conspiracy on the message board as a way of empowering right-wing politics in the US.