While US President may back QAnon groups because they praise him, Facebook and other social media giants are not happy with them for spreading baseless conspiracy theories on their platforms. Facebook has, therefore, decided to ban and restrict a truckload of pages, groups, and ads being run by QAnon members.
In an official blog post, Facebook says that it recently “removed over 790 groups, 100 Pages and 1,500 ads tied to QAnon from Facebook.” It has even restricted more than “1,950 Groups and 440 Pages on Facebook and over 10,000 accounts on Instagram.” These QAnon were using a slew of hashtags to feed their conspiracy theories to more users. Over 300 hashtags have been blocked across Facebook and Instagram as well.
The social media giant further details how it handles borderline violent content on its platform. But, the focus is prominently on QAnon and US militia groups. Facebook is looking to not only remove existing pages and groups violating its moderation policy. Instead, it will also purposefully restrict their ability to organize and reach more users on the platform.
“We will also remove [Facebook] Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts where we identify discussions of potential violence, including when they use veiled language and symbols particular to the movement to do so,” reads the blog post. Facebook is following Twitter’s lead to a crackdown on QAnon groups.
The members of such groups were found spreading the conspiracy theory that the US President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against Satanic Democrats, celebrities, and other powerful personnel including Bill Gates. Even the FBI identifies QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat, one that’s been linked to various acts of violence.
Facebook has been trying to combat the spread of misinformation and false theories by groups and pages for years. However, it is the need of the hour for the company to now expand its ‘Dangerous Individuals and Organizations’ policy. This enables Facebook to take necessary action against groups and movements that may appear as risks to public safety.
The company has laid out actions it’s taking to protect users against QAnon theories and misinformation spread on the platform. You can check out the steps Facebook is adopting right here.
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Yes I agree with commenter below. The group may be strange to many but it is not associated with any violence to the best of my knowledge. The misinformation in this article is only perpetuating justification of control and censorship by Facebook and other large providers of our services. You do not want to support such controls and see a day come where you need to be afraid of what you publish. If you can publish.
I don’t agree in general with the politics of QAnon but I also do not dismiss everything they believe because much of it is legitimately researched or argued soundly etc. They are entitled to draw their conclusions and discuss their issues just as the rest of us. A conspiracy theory is exactly as it says.. a theory. Theories are to be proven or disproven. They are not immediately misinformation just because the word theory is attached to the word conspiracy. That is an incredibly effective propaganda tool that would be extremely useful to cover up any conspiracies should they actually exist.
If in this day and age you do not see that at least a portion of conspiracy theories are in actual fact based on true conspiracies, then you are naive. Many have been exposed that were shocking and unbelievable such as the large pedophile ring active within the British parliament and Child services departments. Fact. So Satanic Democrats? Possible? It is not impossible. If it’s possible then it’s not to be instantly dismissed and censored under the guise of it being a mockery known as a “conspiracy theory”. That is in itself a conspiracy theory against anyone with a different version of affairs than is the status quo. But instead it should be investigated for any legitimacy and particularly if there is an indication that the welfare of children or any people could be at stake.
Don’t give misinformation about censorship of alleged “misinformation”. Just because Facebook says so doesn’t mean that it’s true. They are not the judge and jury of such matters. Please do not condone their abuse of our internet freedoms. Because as was stated here you are a tech site not a mouthpiece for shady dealings with current affairs.
If u have no clue who qanon is,it will be better served if you don’t publish articles from fake news media like the guardian. Qanon has never ever promoted violence since he came online on 28th October 2017. Read all his drops to understand. We come to your website to read tech news and not propaganda. So please desist and don’t give us mainstream 4am talking points.