70k Qanon accounts suspended by Twitter
WASHINGTON: Twitter has permanently suspended more than 70,000 accounts dedicated to sharing Qanon-associated conspiracy theory content and ratcheted up its enforcement in the wake of the Capitol riot last week.
Many of the affected accounts were run by individuals who were operating several of them at a time, Twitter said in a statement detailing its actions. As part of its latest measures, follower counts for some users may change by as many as thousands.
The company had warned against the sharing of Qanon material in the summer and said accounts that tweet or retweet it will continue to have “limited visibility across search, replies, and on timelines and are prohibited from being recommended to others by Twitter”.
Facebook, which also blocked US President Donald Trump from posting on its platforms, including Instagram, announced it is now removing posts that include the phrase “stop the steal”, a common refrain among those believing the November 2020 US election illegitimate.
Paypal Holdings said on Monday that it has blocked a Christian crowdfunding site known as Givesendgo after it helped raise funds for people who attended last week’s event in Washington, DC when supporters of Trump stormed the US Capitol.
The digital payments processor also confirmed to Reuters that it closed an account held by Ali Alexander, one of the organisers of the gathering. The news was reported earlier by Bloomberg, which cited an unidentified source.