Twitter announced on Tuesday that it has begun taking radical steps to limit the scope of QAnon’s content, banning many of the followers of the conspiracy theory due to harassment and disinformation issues.
Twitter will stop recommending QAnon-related accounts and content, including material in the email, and will follow the recommendations, and will take steps to limit the circulation of content on features like trending and search. The action will affect some 150,000 accounts, said a spokesperson, who asked to remain nameless due to concerns about selective harassment of social media employees.
The spokesperson said that as part of its new policy, the company had withdrawn more than 7,000 QAnon accounts in recent weeks for violating its selective harassment rules.
The broad enforcement action will prohibit QAnon-related terms from appearing in trending topics and the platform’s search function, prohibit known QAnon-related URLs, and prohibit the “swarm” of people who are subject to unfounded coordinated harassment campaigns powered by QAnon fans.
The spokesperson said that while selective enforcement was in line with existing platform tampering rules on Twitter, its classification of QAnon material and behavior as coordinated harmful activity was a new designation. The spokesperson said Twitter was acting now due to the increasing damage associated with the conspiracy theory.
Twitter plans to permanently ban accounts that violate policies on platform tampering, avoidance of bans and multi-account operation, behaviors commonly used by QAnon accounts, the spokesperson said. Twitter started blocking QAnon websites last week and will continue to block the distribution of QAnon-related URLs, the spokesperson said.
QAnon is a right-wing conspiracy theory that focuses on the unfounded belief that an anonymous informant is revealing how President Donald Trump is leading a secret war against the so-called deep state: a collection of Hollywood political, business and political elites who, according to the theory, worshiping Satan and abusing and murdering children. The roots of the conspiracy theory stemmed from Pizzagate, who claimed that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring at a pizzeria in Washington, DC.
QAnon emerged from the periphery of the Internet conspiracy community to become a recognized political phenomenon, with Trump supporters appearing at events with “Q” merchandise. QAnon supporters have also been implicated in armed clashes, kidnapping attempts, harassment, and at least one murder since the conspiracy theory gained traction online in October 2017.
Last year, the FBI designated QAnon as a possible domestic terrorist threat. The FBI report on QAnon’s ties to dangerous real-world activities led in part to Twitter’s decision, a spokesman said.
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Despite the lack of evidence and numerous predictions that did not materialize, QAnon’s support has infiltrated the mainstream, with numerous Republican candidates for Congress openly defending his support.
And the coronavirus pandemic has only added further momentum to what is now a QAnon movement that has found common ground with other fringe communities on the Internet, including anti-vaccination groups. In recent months, coordinated QAnon campaigns pushed marginal hashtags like #Obamagate and #SubpoenaObama on trending topics that Trump finally promoted.
Some QAnon supporters have also become more organized and aggressive in targeting celebrities. QAnon supporters frequently check social media posts and Instagram photos of Trump’s famous political opponents, intentionally misinterpreting benign photos as proof that celebrities are eating children. Followers then target celebrities with harassment campaigns, coordinated by influencers in the QAnon community on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Television personality and author Chrissy Teigen has been a constant target of harassment by the QAnon and Pizzagate accounts in recent weeks. The harassment campaign has targeted some of her friends, some of whom are private figures, whose conspiracy theorists have crowded her Instagram accounts by posting violent threats.
This type of harassment campaign is known as a “swarm” or “brigade,” and Twitter said swarms will no longer be allowed on the platform. Twitter will ban users from threatening users during QAnon-related swarms and will limit the reach and search visibility of those who engage in them.
A Twitter spokesperson said the anti-bullying policy could apply to other groups primarily motivated by targeted bullying.
QAnon conspiracy theorists falsely claimed on Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok this month that furniture company Wayfair was sending children trafficked because price flaws pushed pillow and cabinet prices up to tens of thousands of dollars. The company’s name was the top trend on Twitter in the US on July 10, as Twitter users posted links to expensive furniture.
The company released a statement reiterating that some cabinets were priced appropriately and that a technical issue had affected the prices of some custom pillows.
Still, the conspiracy theory has continued to rage among some TikTok users who didn’t know it was initially postulated by a QAnon influencer on Twitter.
Reddit has also banned brigading, in which users from one community attack another community with harassment in a coordinated manner.
