Facebook on Tuesday classified all groups linked to the QAnon conspiracy group as “dangerous” and has begun removing the groups. QAnon is a movement that is spreading conspiracy theories that the American elite are out to overthrow the Donald Trump administration.
Facebook pages and Instagram accounts of representatives of the conspiracy group will also be removed, Facebook writes in a statement.
The measure is an extension of policy that Facebook introduced in August. At that time, the company already removed about a third of the groups associated with QAnon.
Facebook stated that the groups incite violence. Most groups were not yet removed, although their content appeared less frequently in news feeds. The groups and pages have been manually deleted by Facebook employees since August.
It concerned 790 groups, 100 pages and 1,500 advertisements. In addition, Facebook blocked 300 hashtags on Facebook and Instagram and the company placed restrictions in 1,950 groups and 440 pages. The same was true for ten thousand accounts on Instagram.
QAnon is an umbrella name for conspiracy theories about various people and events in American politics. According to the movement, the Democratic Party is forming a state within a state with the aim of overthrowing Trump.
Experts are concerned about the spread of unproven theories through social media. These have led to violence in the past. For example, in 2016 an armed man entered a pizzeria in Washington after reading fake news online. Those reports stated that Democratic politician Hillary Clinton was involved in a criminal network that had hidden underage sex slaves in the restaurant.
– .
