Twitter Cracks Down On QAnon Accounts, Suspends Thousands

WILKES BARRE, PA - AUGUST 02: David Reinert holds up a large "Q" sign while waiting in line on August 2, 2018 at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania to see President Donald J. Trump at his rally. "Q" is a conspiracy theory group that has been seen at recent rallies.    (Photo by Rick Loomis/Getty Images)
WILKES BARRE, PA - AUGUST 02: David Reinert holds up a large "Q" sign while waiting in line to see President Donald J. Trump at his rally on August 2, 2018 at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes Barre, Pen... WILKES BARRE, PA - AUGUST 02: David Reinert holds up a large "Q" sign while waiting in line to see President Donald J. Trump at his rally on August 2, 2018 at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. "Q" represents QAnon, a conspiracy theory group that has been seen at recent rallies. (Photo by Rick Loomis/Getty Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

On Tuesday night, Twitter announced that it was suspending accounts peddling the QAnon conspiracy theory that violated the multi-account rule or are coordinating abuse against individuals.

The company also said it would remove the topic from its recommended section, and would block QAnon-related URLs from being shared on the platform.

Twitter told TPM that the crackdown has resulted in the permanent suspension of 7,000 accounts, with the expectation that it will eventually result in reduced visibility for 150,000 accounts.

“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” Twitter wrote. “In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called ‘QAnon’ activity across the service.”

The QAnon conspiracy theory is a vague patchwork of beliefs centered on the idea of a “deep state” working to destabilize President Donald Trump. Adherents believe that an anonymous person, nicknamed “Q,” leaves coded messages and directives for his followers. At its most extreme, the theory portends a great final judgment for prominent Democrats and pop culture figures who will face death or a military tribunal for their Satanic and pedophilic practices.

Last week, model and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen became a victim of the swarm, and said she blocked one million accounts.

“I have block chained over one million people, ONE MILLION people today and I am still flooded with sick psychopaths,” she wrote on Twitter. “So please, spare me the ‘just ignore them, they’re just trolls.’”

She reacted to the ban Wednesday, responding to a critic who called the move “censorship.”

“You don’t have a ‘right’ to coordinate attacks and make death threats,” she said. “It is not an ‘opinion’ to call people pedophiles who rape and eat children.”

The conspiracy theory has dribbled out of troll-controlled messaging boards on the fringes of the internet into the mainstream Republican party. Trump frequently retweets QAnon memes and messages, and a slew of QAnon supporters are running for Congress as Republicans — a couple have a good chance of winning their races.

Trump tweeted his congratulations to one of those, Marjorie Greene in Georgia’s 14th district, who is competing in an August runoff after coming out well ahead in the first round. Greene once said in a YouTube video: “I’m very excited about that now there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.”

Those in Trump’s close orbit have also embraced the incoherent belief system. On Wednesday morning, Rudy Giuliani shared a meme from a QAnon account that claims to show Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) at an al-Qaeda training camp in Somalia.

Trump’s son Eric Trump also recently shared a QAnon meme on his Instagram page.

Screenshot of Eric Trump’s Instagram.

The conspiracy theory has spread quickly on social media platforms. Facebook employees told the New York Times that their company is planning a similar crackdown on QAnon content next month. The company did not respond to TPM’s questions.

Facebook has recently started adding labels to some of Trump’s false or misleading posts, but not factchecking them. This week, Facebook added flags to posts from both Trump and presumptive nominee Joe Biden about voting that led to government websites to learn more about how to cast a ballot. Trump’s was a false claim that mail-in voting would “corrupt” the election, while Biden’s simply urged readers to vote the President out of office this November.

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. Did this include Fat Nixon’s account?

  2. Yesterday driving home from work I heard an interviewer on NPR ask a hospital employee who they were voting for in November. She said Trump because he was a businessman and that’s what this country needs right now. And twice mentioned that fake news was making the president look bad about the covid thing.

  3. Retards abound.

  4. Avatar for gr gr says:

    They live in an alternate reality and that’s not just a metaphor. That level of ignorance is a form of mental illness.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

70 more replies

Participants

Avatar for discobot Avatar for jw1 Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for pyanfar Avatar for trnc Avatar for sniffit Avatar for drriddle Avatar for danny Avatar for donnyyoung Avatar for gr Avatar for tena Avatar for dommyluc Avatar for docd Avatar for pmaroneyb Avatar for castor_troy Avatar for hahagoodman Avatar for drtv Avatar for timorwig Avatar for bcgister Avatar for inthesedays Avatar for swampsofjersey Avatar for yellowbeard Avatar for rascal_crone

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: