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Twitter users suspended after US riots

TWITTER has announced it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts associated with the far- right QAnon conspiracy theory following last week’s US Capitol riot.

The social media company said that given the events last week in Washington DC, where a mob of pro- Trump loyalists tried to violently storm the Capitol building, it was taking action against online behaviour “that has the potential to lead to offline harm”.

In many cases, a single individual operated numerous accounts, driving up the total number of affected accounts, the company said in a blog post.

“These accounts were engaged in sharing harmful QAnonassociated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service,” the company said.

The QAnon conspiracy theory is centred on the baseless belief that President Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against “deep state” enemies and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic paedophiles and cannibals.

Twitter’s sweeping purge of QAnon accounts, which began on Friday, is part of a wider crackdown that also includes its decision to ban Trump from the service over worries about further incitement of violence.

The suspensions mean some

Twitter users will lose followers, in some cases by the thousands, the company said.

Twitter has previously tried to crack down on QAnon, removing more than 7000 accounts in July.

Twitter said it is also stepping up enforcement measures and it will soon limit the spread of posts that violate its civic integrity policy.