DANGER ALERT

FBI Labels Fringe Conspiracy Theories as Domestic Terrorism Threat

In a previously unpublished report, the FBI says theories like QAnon and Pizzagate could pose a new domestic terrorism threat.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes conspiracy theories like QAnon and Pizzagate pose a domestic-terrorism threat, Yahoo News reports. A previously unpublished FBI bulletin from May 30 says that for the first time the agency is labelling “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” as a growing threat. The report points to fringe conspiracy theories as being potentially harmful and having the potential to expand in the 2020 election cycle. “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document says. In the report, the FBI specifically cites multiple cases of conspiracy-driven violence, including a California man found in possession of a bomb who referenced Pizzagate and the New World Order, as well as the Pittsburgh shooter who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life Synagogue and had posted anti-Semitic content on social media.