What role have platforms like Telegram and YouTube played in the rise and monetization of QAnon personalities?
Executive summary
Platforms have played complementary roles in QAnon's rise: YouTube served as an early amplifier and content source that mainstreamed Q-adjacent videos and sent traffic into fringe networks, while Telegram has functioned as a resilient, globalized refuge where large followings coalesce, messages are broadcast and organized, and monetizable audiences are kept captive after deplatforming on mainstream sites [1] [2] [3]. Research and reporting show a migration and multiplication effect—deplatforming on mainstream platforms did not erase QAnon; it redirected activity into encrypted channels that grew in size, scope and international reach [2] [3] [4].
1. Telegram became a sanctuary and scale engine for QAnon
Encrypted, channel-centric design and permissive recommendation dynamics allowed QAnon communities to regroup, expand and globalize on Telegram: academic monitoring found QAnon messages and senders increased substantially in 2021—almost fivefold in the authors’ dataset—and studies report steady subscriber growth and repeated increases in group size across 2020–2021, with some channels reaching hundreds of thousands of followers [3] [5] [4] [6]. Reporting and civil-society research documented that Telegram’s channel and group model produced a captive audience and that powerful operators such as the GhostEzra persona amassed massive followings after bans elsewhere, exploiting Telegram’s reach to propagate COVID misinformation, antisemitic content and calls for real-world action [7] [8] [2].
2. Telegram’s architecture and recommendations multiplied reach and radical mixing
Telegram’s public channels, broadcast-first mechanics and algorithmic or manual recommendation pathways create an environment where disparate far-right and extremist actors can be exposed to QAnon audiences; watchdog research and the SPLC detailed how Telegram’s recommendations can steer users from mainstream MAGA figures to more extreme channels, producing dangerous cross-pollination between QAnon followers, neo‑Nazis and other extremist groups [9] [6]. Academic topic modeling also shows multilingual growth—German content overtook English in some datasets—demonstrating that Telegram was central to QAnon’s globalization rather than merely an English-language afterlife [3] [5].
3. YouTube’s role: amplification, normalization and referral
Before and during platform crackdowns, YouTube videos and creators frequently appeared in QAnon discourse and served as source material for channels and posts—researchers found links shared by QAnon communities often pointed to YouTube and Twitter, suggesting YouTube content helped normalize and feed conspiratorial narratives that later migrated into Telegram spaces [1]. When mainstream platforms removed QAnon content, the net effect was not elimination but fragmentation: YouTube’s prior amplification had already seeded audiences and creators who could redirect followers to encrypted groups, and academic and journalistic accounts trace referral patterns from mainstream video platforms into private Telegram communities [1] [2].
4. Monetization was less a single platform feature than an ecosystem opportunity
The evidence shows monetization did not hinge on one technical feature documented in the supplied reporting; instead, platforms created a monetizable captive audience and political marketplace: large Telegram channels and the broader MAGA ecosystem attracted followings that influencers and aligned candidates could mobilize, and researchers and reporting note QAnon actors leveraging that audience for political influence, recruitment and sustained engagement—conditions that enable fundraising, merchandise sales and paid content even if specific payment flows are not fully detailed in these sources [8] [7] [9]. The literature observes that links from YouTube and Twitter served as traffic sources and that Telegram’s channels concentrated attention, together creating the supply and demand conditions necessary for monetization, though the provided reporting does not map every payment mechanism end-to-end [1] [2].
5. Competing narratives, deplatforming outcomes and open questions
There are two competing takes in the sources: one emphasizes platform responsibility and the role of deplatforming in limiting spread on mainstream sites, while the other stresses that deplatforming merely rerouted and intensified activity on platforms like Telegram—allowing growth, internationalization and cross-radicalization [2] [3] [4]. Reporting documents clear growth on Telegram after mainstream purges, but the sources stop short of providing a complete ledger of monetization methods or of causal estimates of how much revenue individual QAnon personalities actually derived from platform-driven audiences, leaving important empirical gaps [2] [8].
Conclusion
Taken together, the evidence in academic studies and journalistic investigations portrays YouTube as a prior amplifier and referral source that helped mainstream Q-adjacent content, and Telegram as the resilient, algorithmically and socially hospitable environment that absorbed displaced communities, scaled them globally and created the concentrated audiences and networks which made monetization—political influence, recruitment and fundraising—practical even after mainstream platforms pushed back [1] [3] [7] [9]. The reporting establishes the architecture of rise and resilience but leaves unanswered details about precise revenue streams for individual personalities, warranting further investigation.