What is QAnon as its content is banned from Facebook?
Just what is it and where does it come from?
Controversial group QAnon is back in the news after Facebook announced it would be removing pages or groups representing them from its platform.
The social media company, which also owns Instagram, confirmed the news in a statement, saying: ‘Starting today, we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content.
‘This is an update from the initial policy in August that removed Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon when they discussed potential violence while imposing a series of restrictions to limit the reach of other Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with the movement.’
Just what is QAnon and what do its followers believe?
What is QAnon and when did it start?
QAnon is a wide-ranging conspiracy theory which has claimed that there is a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media, being fought by Donald Trump.
It is thought to have begun in 2017, after an anonymous user posted a string of messages on the website 4chan, signing them off with the letter ‘Q’, and claiming to have a level of US security approval referred to as ‘Q clearance’.
Further messages – written in cryptic language and seemingly littered with pro-Trump themes – followed, and were referred to as ‘Q drops’ or ‘breadcrumbs’, with the mysterious Q growing in popularity across social media.
Q has proven to be a prolific poster, allowing followers to select titbits which vaguely resemble the truth, while ignoring the rest.
What do its followers believe?
It’s thought that QAnon has hundreds of thousands of followers who believe the postings, with its popularity having grown even more in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The movement is of the belief that Trump’s alleged fight against Satan-worshipping paedophiles will end with a ‘day of reckoning’ which will see many high-profile people arrested.
The group has also gained traction within the ‘alt-right’ and is linked to anti-vaccine and 5G beliefs.
Its popularity has become such that a book featuring its conspiracy theories found its way on to Amazon’s worldwide best-seller list last year.
However it’s caused controversy on social media, with Twitter having previously taken action against the group amid concern that its posts could cause ‘offline harm’.
Facebook announced new measures to curb their content back in August, but confirmed they were ‘strengthening enforcement efforts against QAnon’ earlier this week.
‘Our Dangerous Organizations Operations team will continue to enforce this policy and proactively detect content for removal instead of relying on user reports,’ they said.
‘We’ve been vigilant in enforcing our policy and studying its impact on the platform but we’ve seen several issues that led to today’s update.
‘For example, while we’ve removed QAnon content that celebrates and supports violence, we’ve seen other QAnon content tied to different forms of real world harm, including recent claims that the west coast wildfires were started by certain groups, which diverted attention of local officials from fighting the fires and protecting the public.
‘Additionally, QAnon messaging changes very quickly and we see networks of supporters build an audience with one message and then quickly pivot to another. We aim to combat this more effectively with this update that strengthens and expands our enforcement against the conspiracy theory movement.’
MORE: Donald Trump named world’s biggest coronavirus conspiracy theorist
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