FB, Twitter Announce Crackdowns on Content Linked with QAnon

Facebook and Twitter have announced crackdowns on content linked QAnon. Quanon is an unfounded and sprawling conspiracy theory with followers who espouse an intertwined series of beliefs.

They believe anonymous web postings from “Q,” who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration.

A core tenet of the conspiracy theory is that President Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators. These include prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and “deep state” allies.

QAnon, borrows some elements from the bogus “pizzagate” theory about a pedophile ring run out of a Washington restaurant. It has become a “big tent” conspiracy theory encompassing misinformation about topics ranging from alien landings to vaccine safety.

Its followers say a so-called Great Awakening is coming to bring salvation.

The ‘Q’ posts started in 2017 on the message board 4chan. They are now posted on 8kun, a rebranded version of the shuttered web board 8chan.

QAnon has been amplified on Twitter and Facebook. Moreover, on Instagram and YouTube, the video streaming service of Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc’s Google.

Media investigations have shown that social media recommendation algorithms can drive people towards more material. This refers to people who show an interest in conspiracy theories.

The number of users engaging in discussion of QAnon on Twitter and Facebook have surged this year. This was according to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Furthermore, ISD found that the membership of QAnon groups on Facebook grew 120 percent in March.

Some researchers say that Russian government-supported organizations play a small but increasing role in amplifying the conspiracy theories.

FB & Twitter : Real-life Protests Against Child Trafficking

Backers of QAnon helped organize real-life protests against child trafficking in August. They were involved in a pro-police demonstration in Portland, Oregon.

They also look poised to gain a toehold in the U.S. House of Representatives. That is with at least one Republican candidate who espouses its beliefs on track to win in the November elections.

Twitter said in July that it would stop recommending QAnon content and accounts in a crackdown. It expected that it would affect about 150,000 accounts. 

It also said it would block QAnon URLs and permanently suspend QAnon accounts that coordinate abuse or violate its rules.

Facebook removed nearly 800 QAnon groups in August, for posts celebrating violence, or showing intent to use weapons. They also removed them for posts attracting followers with patterns of violent behavior.

It also imposed restrictions on the remaining 1,950 public and private QAnon groups that it found. Facebook said it plans to ban ads that promote or reference QAnon, and disallow QAnon pages to run commerce shops.

Other Social Media Platforms: TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Amazon

A spokeswoman for the short-form video app TikTok said QAnon content “frequently contains disinformation and hate speech”. It has blocked dozens of QAnon hashtags.

A Reddit spokeswoman said the site has removed QAnon communities that repeatedly violated its rules since 2018. This was when it took down forums such as r/greatawakening.

A YouTube spokeswoman said it has removed tens of thousands of Q-related videos. It has terminated hundreds of Q-related channels for violating its rules since updating its hate speech policy in June 2019.

It also said it lessens its recommendations of certain QAnon videos as they could misinform users in harmful ways. YouTube does not have a specific ban on monetizing QAnon content. About 20% of all QAnon-related Facebook posts contained YouTube links, according to  ISD researchers.

Reviews of major e-commerce sites Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY) Inc show sellers listing QAnon-branded items. They  range from books to T-shirts and face masks.