Prosecutors in Paris demanded sentences of up to one year suspended prison and fines of up to 8,000 euros ($8,976) for ten defendants charged with online sexual harassment of the first lady.

Auzière, 41, testified in court that the unfounded claims about her mother's gender caused a "deterioration" in her health. "She has to constantly pay attention to what she wears, how she stands, because she knows her image might be distorted," Auzière said. Auzière added that Brigitte's grandchildren suffer harassment at school because of this.

Auzière testified that "it's important for her to be here to present the damage caused" to her mother, adding that she "wants to tell what her life has become from the moment these attacks began." Auzière said her mother "wasn't elected and didn't ask for this, and found herself under attack."

Claims that Brigitte Macron was born male have circulated since her husband's election to the presidency in 2017, mainly by far-right circles and conspiracy theory supporters in France and the US. The first lady filed a complaint in August 2024 that led to an investigation and arrests in December 2024 and February 2025.

Ten defendants – eight men and two women, ages 41 to 60 – will be tried in a Paris criminal court, charged with sexually harassing Brigitte Macron. Two additional defendants, residents of Corsica, are charged not only with online harassment but also with exploiting a loophole in the French tax system to change Brigitte's name to a male name as part of the effort to spread the conspiracy theory.

Parallel to the Paris trial, the Macrons filed a defamation lawsuit in the US in July against Candace Owens, a far-right podcast host known for spreading wild conspiracies and anti-Israel propaganda. Owens produced a series called "Becoming Brigitte" and, in March 2024, said she was willing to bet "all her professional credibility" that Brigitte Macron was born male.

According to the Macrons' American attorney, they plan to present photographic and "scientific" evidence in court proving the first lady is a woman.

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Donald Trump reiterated false claims about immigrants eating people's pets during Tuesday's presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, promoting an internet conspiracy theory that has been thoroughly debunked, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"In Springfield, they are eating the dogs," Trump said on stage during the ABC debate in Philadelphia. "They're eating the cats," he continued, referring to Haitian immigrants in Ohio.

𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣: "In Springfield, they are eating the dogs." pic.twitter.com/6ARkgRzgs9

— Polkadot Leader (@PolkadotLeader) September 11, 2024

 However, local police and city officials have stated there is no evidence to support these allegations. Springfield Police issued a statement on Monday saying the rumor originated from a Facebook post citing secondhand information from a "neighbor's daughter's friend" about a pet cat allegedly being eaten. The original poster did not claim firsthand knowledge of any such incident.

Vice President Harris appeared bemused by Trump's comments, shaking her head and laughing as he repeated the unsubstantiated claims. The conspiracy theory has also been promoted this week by Trump's running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, and spread on social media by conservative figures and billionaire Elon Musk.

Debate moderator David Muir attempted to fact-check Trump's statements in real-time, noting that ABC had confirmed with Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck that there were no reports of immigrants harming pets. To which Trump responded, "But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there."

Several prominent Republicans voiced discontent with the debate moderation, suggesting it was unfairly skewed against Trump. South Carolina Sen Lindsey Graham expressed his frustration, stating, "The moderators might as well be on the DNC payroll. This is ridiculous." California Republican Representative Darrell Issa went further, declaring, "This is the worst moderated debate in history."

Donald Trump Truth Social 05:34 PM EST 09/10/24 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/cF9umhqOHo

— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) September 10, 2024

Meanwhile, Trump's comments about immigrants and pets quickly gained traction on social media platforms. Users began sharing memes and AI-generated images depicting Trump in various animal-friendly scenarios. One artificially created image showed the former president rescuing a large ginger cat from a burning building. Trump himself participated in the online discourse by reposting one of these manipulated images to his Truth Social account. The image in question depicted Trump on a private jet, surrounded by cats and ducks.

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On the face of it, you might think that the QAnon conspiracy has largely disappeared from big social media sites. But that's not quite the case.

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True, you're much less likely to find popular QAnon catchphrases like "great awakening," "the storm" or "trust the plan" on Facebook these days. Facebook and Twitter have removed tens of thousands of accounts dedicated to the baseless conspiracy theory, which depicts former President Donald Trump as a hero fighting a secret battle against a sect of devil-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government.

Gone are the huge "Stop the Steal" groups that spread falsehoods about the 2020 US presidential elections. Trump is gone as well, banned from Twitter permanently and suspended from posting on Facebook until 2023.

But QAnon is far from winding down. Federal intelligence officials recently warned that its adherents could commit more violence, like the deadly Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. At least one open supporter of QAnon has been elected to Congress. In the four years since someone calling themselves "Q" started posting enigmatic messages on fringe internet discussions boards, QAnon has grown.

That's partly because QAnon now encompasses a variety of conspiracy theories, from evangelical or religious angles to alleged pedophilia in Hollywood and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council's DFRLab who focuses on domestic extremism. "Q-specific stuff is sort of dwindling," he said. But the worldviews and conspiracy theories that QAnon absorbed are still with us.

Loosely tying these movements together is a general distrust of a powerful, often leftist elite. Among them are purveyors of anti-vaccine falsehoods, adherents of Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and believers in just about any other worldview convinced that a shadowy cabal secretly controls things.

For social platforms, dealing with this faceless, shifting and increasingly popular mindset is a far more complicated challenge than they've dealt with in the past.

These ideologies "have cemented their place and now are a part of American folklore," said Max Rizzuto, another researcher at DFRLab. "I don't think we'll ever see it disappear."

Online, such groups now blend into the background. Where Facebook groups once openly referenced QAnon, you'll now see others like "Since you missed this in the so called MSM," a page referencing "mainstream media" that boasts more than 4,000 followers. It features links to clips of Fox News' Tucker Carlson and to articles from right-wing publications such as Newsmax and the Daily Wire.

Subjects range from allegedly rampant crime to unfounded claims of widespread election fraud and an "outright war on conservatives." Such groups aim to draw followers in deeper by directing them to further information on less-regulated sites such as Gab or Parler.

When DFRLab analyzed more than 40 million appearances of QAnon catchphrases and related terms on social media this spring, it found that their presence on mainstream platforms had declined significantly in recent months. After peaks in the late summer of 2020 and briefly on Jan. 6, QAnon catchphrases have largely evaporated from mainstream sites, DFRLab found.

So while your friends and relatives might not be posting wild conspiracies about Hillary Clinton drinking children's blood, they might instead be repeating debunked claims such as that vaccines can alter your DNA.

There are several reasons for dwindling Q talk – Trump losing the presidential election, for instance, and the lack of new messages from "Q." But the single biggest factor appears to have been the QAnon crackdown on Facebook and Twitter. Despite well-documented mistakes that revealed spotty enforcement, the banishment largely appears to have worked. It is more difficult to come across blatant QAnon accounts on mainstream social media sites these days, at least from the publicly available data that does not include, for instance, hidden Facebook groups and private messages.

While QAnon groups, pages and core accounts may be gone, many of their supporters remain on the big platforms – only now they're camouflaging their language and watering down the most extreme tenets of QAnon to make them more palatable.

"There was a very, very explicit effort within the QAnon community to camouflage their language," said Angelo Carusone, the president and CEO of Media Matters, a liberal research group that has followed QAnon's rise. "So they stopped using a lot of the codes, the triggers, the keywords that were eliciting the kinds of enforcement actions against them."

Other dodges may have also helped. Rather than parroting Q slogans, for instance, for a while earlier this year supporters would type three asterisks next to their name to signal adherence to the conspiracy theory. (That's a nod to former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, a three-star general).

Facebook says it has removed about 3,300 pages, 10,500 groups, 510 events, 18,300 Facebook profiles and 27,300 Instagram accounts for violating its policy against QAnon. "We continue to consult with experts and improve our enforcement in response to how harm evolves, including by recidivist groups," the company said in a statement.

But the social giant will still cut individuals posting about QAnon slack, citing experts who warn that banning individual Q adherents "may lead to further social isolation and danger," the company said. Facebook's policies and response to QAnon continue to evolve. Since last August, the company says it has added dozens of new terms as the movement and its language has evolved.

Twitter, meanwhile, says it has consistently taken action against activity that could lead to offline harm. After the Jan. 6 insurrection, the company began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that it said were "primarily dedicated" to sharing dangerous QAnon material. Twitter said it has suspended 150,000 such accounts to date. Like Facebook, the company says its response is also evolving.

But the crackdown may have come too late. Carusone, for instance, noted that Facebook banned QAnon groups tied to violence six weeks before it banned QAnon more broadly. That effectively gave followers notice to regroup, camouflage and move to different platforms.

"If there were ever a time for a social media company to take a stand on QAnon content, it would have been like months ago, years ago," DFRLabs' Rizzuto said.

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A new party under the leadership of a doctor who opposes vaccines and who has had his medical license suspended at least once is gearing up to run for the Knesset in the March election, on a platform that focuses on healthcare and increasing the national healthcare budget.

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Party head Dr. Arieh Avni opposes western medicine, including vaccines, and has published material attacking members of the medical profession and the medical establishment in Israel.

The Rapeh party platform states that its members intend to "work to change the priorities of the healthcare system for the good of the citizens of Israel, and end the monopoly on medical treatments by integrating alternative medicine into the Israeli healthcare system."

On his Facebook page, Avni discusses his new party, writing: "And this is the third point of our platform: the mission of Rapeh is to heal the long-term ills of the Health Ministry, which reached new heights in 2020-2021 and were seen in insufferable medical coercion and harm to human rights – lockdown, social distancing, electronic tracking, 'green passports,' mandatory masks, the destruction of the economy, and the public being misled."

Avni writes, "The crimes that they, the top officials in the Health Ministry over the years, have committed since the founding of the state against the residents of this country are an atrocity. They, the senior officials, have made the residents of Israel into slaves of the vaccine manufacturers, and chemotherapy and a sea of medications, without teaching them anything about ways of maintaining their health."

Avni's views are not limited to vaccines. In 2015 the Health Ministry suspended his license for a month after he published articles on a website accusing oncologists of killing cancer patients through conventional cancer treatments.

Some of his quotes cited in the ministry's decision to suspend his license include an assertion by Avni that "If cancer patients refused on masse to take poison, oncologists would be out of work," and "Oncologists are the main factor in digging the graves of 10,000 cancer patients in Israel every year."

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