Facebook will ban any groups, pages or Instagram accounts that “represent” QAnon, the company announced Tuesday, in a sharp escalation of its attempt to crack down on the antisemitic conspiracy movement that has thrived on its platform.
The policy will apply to groups, pages or Instagram accounts whose names or descriptions suggest that they are dedicated to the QAnon movement, a Facebook spokesperson explained. It will not apply to individual content.
Just two months ago, Facebook had no policy on QAnon, a baseless internet conspiracy theory whose followers believe without evidence that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against a world-ruling cabal of child-traffickers.
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The movement, which began on niche image boards but gained a larger audience on Reddit, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, exploded in popularity on Facebook and Instagram in recent months. It has been repeatedly linked to violence and was deemed a potential domestic terrorism threat by the FBI, but nevertheless has garnered growing support from Republican politicians and the Republican party.
Facebook’s first attempt at a crackdown came on 19 August, when the company announced a host of restrictions on QAnon-promoting accounts that stopped short of an outright ban.
“We’ve been vigilant in enforcing our policy and studying its impact on the platform but we’ve seen several issues that led to today’s update,” the company said in a blog post. “For example, while we’ve removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, we’ve seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public.”
More on this story as it develops …
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