Facebook Inc. is expanding its focus on the QAnon conspiracy movement, saying it will remove all pages, groups and Instagram accounts linked to QAnon followers in an effort to limit their reach and growth online.
Facebook had previously banned QAnon’s pages, groups and accounts if they called for or celebrated violence. But that meant that the Groups and Pages that trafficked in the QAnon conspiracies, but were not explicitly violent, remained in service.
Now partnering with QAnon is in many cases against company rules, Facebook said in a blog post Tuesday. Individual accounts and posts related to QAnon are allowed on the social network, but the company imposed the Groups and Pages ban in an effort to prevent followers of the conspiracy movement from congregating. The photo sharing app does not require people to use their real identities.
In the blog post, Facebook said that its rogue organization’s operations team will proactively seek out unlinked QA content, rather than simply relying on user reports.
The QAnon conspiracy group has become more common thanks in large part to Facebook products. The Network Groups feature has allowed QAnon believers, who believe President Donald Trump is fighting a cabal of high-profile child molesters, to learn and spread their beliefs. Facebook removed hundreds of pages and groups linked to the movement in August, but an internal report discovered by NBC News found that QAnon’s groups on Facebook had millions of followers.
TThe Federal Bureau of Investigation classified QAnon as a national terrorist threat as early as August 2019.
Facebook said it chose to update the policy after seeing how QAnon Groups spread misinformation on other topics, including the recent wildfires in the western United States.
Also, QAnon’s messages change very quickly and we see that fan networks build an audience with one message and then quickly switch to another.
