Facebook removes 790 QAnon groups

Facebook said Wednesday that it had removed 790 QAnon groups from its site and is restricting another 1,950 groups, 440 pages and more than 10,000 Instagram accounts related to the rightwing conspiracy theory, in the social network’s most sweeping action against the fastgrowing movement.

The move followed record growth of QAnon groups on the site, much of it since the coronavirus pandemic began in March. Activity on some of the largest QAnon groups, including likes, comments and shares of posts, rose 200% to 300% in the past six months, according to data gathered by the New York Times.

“We have seen growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior,” Facebook said.

QAnon was once a fringe phenomenon with believers who alleged, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satanworshiping pedophiles who were plotting against President Trump while operating a global child sextrafficking ring. But ahead of the November election, the movement has become increasingly mainstream. Marjorie Taylor Greene, an avowed QAnon supporter from Georgia, recently won a House Republican primary.

Facebook has been tracking QAnon’s growth since early May, according to two employees involved in the effort. But discussions on what to do about the groups stalled because Facebook was concerned that taking them down would feed into QAnon’s baseless conspiracy theory that social media companies are trying to silence them, the people said.

Facebook also said it would remove 980 groups such as those related to the farleft antifa movement and block QAnon hashtags such as #digital army and #thestorm.