Facebook is banning accounts, pages and groups across its platforms that purport to represent the QAnon network of conspiracies, the social network has announced.
“Starting today, we will remove Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts” the company said this week.
Previously Facebook has said it would place restrictions on groups or pages that regularly promoted QAnon conspiracies, but has since escalated their policies to actively removing such accounts and groups.
QAnon refers to a broad interconnected network of [often contradictory] conspiracies that’s broad theme is that there is a large, connected group of Satanic worshipping pedophiles around the planet – largely comprising of Democratic politicians, the “Deep State” and a variety of well-known celebrities – and that President Donald Trump is waging a secret war to unmask them.
Such conspiracies often use real world events as “evidence” of their claims. This includes the hacked and subsequently leaked Democratic National Committee emails by Wikileaks, which conspiracy theorists erroneously claim prove that politicians including Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and former campaign manager John Podesta are involved in a satanic paedophilia ring that regularly holds meetings in the basement of a Washington D.C. pizzeria. (A theory that was debunked for a variety of obvious reasons, notwithstanding the fact the pizzeria didn’t have a basement.)
In 2020, many who promote QAnon conspiracy theories have also added to the high number of existing conspiracies involving the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that it is fake and a cover-up to deflect from these vast paedophile rings. Others have claimed that Jeffrey Epstein – who really had been charged with an array of sex crimes – was part of this network and had been killed by other members to keep him from telling the truth.
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QAnon owes its roots to an anonymous poster on troll website 4Chan who in 2017 claimed to be an operative by the name of Q who purported to have classified documents pertaining to the US government.
Unlike many fringe conspiracy theories, there are a plethora of accounts with high follower counts – including social media influencers – who regularly promote QAnon conspiracies, meaning this network of conspiracies has enjoyed a much higher reach than many other online conspiracies.
The world of conspiracy theories has increased dramatically over the past few years. Not only has the QAnon movement seen a sudden rise in popularity, there has also been a number of conspiracies surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic – or plandemic as conspiracy theorists like to call it. This has included the claims that COVID-19 is the result of 5G technology, or that it was deliberately created and released by China, or that it is fake and the fatality tallies fabricated, or that it was created by Bill Gates and other scientists in an effort to reduce the world population.
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While these COVID-19 theories do not directly tie into the broad theme of QAnon, they can often become blended or merged together since many who promote them will often promote QAnon content simultaneously.
Facebook’s decision to remove groups or accounts promoting QAnon is likely to be received with criticisms of censorship and suppression from those who peddle them, and increases the chances that “alternative” social media platforms that promise to leave all content alone will see an increase in popularity, making it harder to track how much reach these conspiracies receive.
Over the last year many people who have been targeted by QAnon over baseless theories have reported receiving death threats, including Members of Congress. The FBI calls the QAnon movement a domestic terror threat.
Facebook has said that the removal of QAnon content may take days or weeks.