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Facebook is broadening 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 were peddling the QAnon conspiracies, but were not explicitly violent, remained in the service.
Now partnering with QAnon is in many cases against company rules, Facebook said in a blog post Tuesday. Individual accounts and QAnon-related posts 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. Instagram accounts linked to QAnon are also prohibited. The photo sharing app does not require people to use their real identities.
In the blog post, Facebook said that its Hazardous Organization Operations team will proactively search for QAnon-linked content, rather than relying solely on user reports. “This work will take time and will continue for days and weeks to come,” the company said.
The QAnon conspiracy group has become more common thanks in large part to Facebook products. The Network’s Groups feature has allowed QAnon believers, who think President Donald Trump is fighting a cabal of high-profile child molesters, to meet 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 groups on Facebook had millions of followers.
Trump has also promoted the group through posts and retweets on his social media accounts. The 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 QAnon groups spread misinformation on other topics, including the recent wildfires in the western US.
“We have seen other QAnon content linked to different forms of harm in the real world,” the company wrote. “Also, QAnon’s messages change very quickly and we see fan networks building an audience with one message and then quickly switching to another.”
