GTV, the media platform operated by Steve Bannon’s billionaire benefactor Guo Wengui (who also goes by Miles Guo), has fully embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory over the past week, carrying a YouTube series that The New York Times calls “core QAnon content” that “many QAnon believers have credited with spurring their interest in the group.”  

GTV is part of Guo’s GTV Media, a Chinese-language online platform rife with conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and the Chinese government that is reportedly under investigation by the FBI and Security Exchange Commission. Guo is a Chinese expatriate who left the country under duress after falling out with Xi Jinping’s government and now works alongside far-right operatives in the United States including Bannon and his affiliates. A recent investigation found Guo’s activism has resulted in threats and harassment against his critics across the world. 

Guo and Bannon’s partnership has been covered in the mainstream media. Over the past year, Guo has appeared on Bannon’s podcast War Room: Pandemic to help him spread conspiracy theories regarding the coronavirus. Recently, GTV has been central to disseminating Bannon and Rudy Giuliani’s baseless smears of the Biden family. In August, Bannon was arrested by Postal Service agents on fraud charges while aboard Guo’s yacht off the coast of Connecticut. He has acknowledged that he is one of the sources of GTV’s content, with the platform also hosting his podcast. 

Over the past week, GTV has started promoting QAnon, a web of conspiracy theories that purports that Democrats, Satan-worshiping pedophiles, and the “deep state” are working to undermine President Donald Trump and the American government. The conspiracy theory has been linked to occurrences of violence and labeled a potential domestic terrorism threat by the FBI. (Bannon himself has recently embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory after his October surprise attacking Hunter Biden fell flat.) 

GTV is currently carrying the QAnon-focused YouTube series The Fall of Cabal:

Many of the series’s YouTube videos are in Chinese, but they include visuals that are signifiers of the conspiracy theory, such as the slogan “WWG1WGA,” mentions of “A Great Awakening” or an impending “storm,” and an image depicting the choice between a blue pill and a red pill. 

Some of these videos include footage of past livestreams where conspiracy theorists discussed posts from “Q,” the central figure in the theory, an anonymous poster on far-right message boards who releases cryptic messages that supposedly include classified government information.