Facebook says it will ban QAnon groups, after three years

Facebook announced Tuesday that it will ban all accounts, pages, and groups both on Facebook and Instagram that supports the QAnon conspiracy theory.

“Starting today, we will remove Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts,” Facebook said in a statement.

This move is coming three years after the conspiracy theory began, during which QAnon adherents have come up with different contradictory theories. The underlying QAnon theory being claims about A-list celebrities and a cabal of politicians engaging the child trafficking and sexual abuse, and a “deep state” determination to undermine President Donald Trump. The FBI warned last year that the Q adherents are a threat to national security.

The QAnon conspiracy theory also says President Trump is waging war against elite pedophiles and Satan-worshippers.

“Our Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports,” Facebook said.

After three years of the QAnon conspiracy has been embraced by some Republicans running for Congress. President Trump in August praised QAnon adherents for supporting him. Hence, Facebook’s move of banning QAnon will not be welcomed by some.

“I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” said Trump in the White House briefing room.

In the past Facebook made multiple commitments to banning certain accounts, groups, and pages that promote conspiracy theories, but enforcing some of those bans have been slow and inconsistent.

Facebook launched a mass cleansing of thousands of QAnon adherent accounts across Facebook and Instagram platforms. It also cracked down militia and anarchist groups, as Facebook described their activities as a celebration of violence and signs of domestic terrorism. This brought the total number of restricted accounts to 1,950 on Facebook, and more than 10,000 on Instagram.

What is QAnon?

The first QAnon movement began in 2017 after an anonymous user posted multiple posts on the message board 4chan. The anonymous user often signed off as “Q” and claimed to possess high level US security approval known as “Q clearance.”

The messages were then referred to as “Q drops” or “breadcrumbs”, and often written in cryptic words, slogans, pledges, and pro-Trump themes. As a result, the movement generated high traffic on mainstream social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit, since 2017. There were also indications that the numbers increased during the coronavirus pandemic.