META Meta Platforms Inc

By Sarah E. Needleman 

Facebook Inc. said it would step up its crackdown on QAnon, removing more groups and pages devoted to the fast-growing conspiracy movement that has thrived on social media.

The move, announced on Tuesday, builds on Facebook's efforts announced in August to remove QAnon pages and groups that included discussions of potential violence. The company will now ban any pages or groups dedicated to QAnon across Facebook, as well as Instagram accounts focused on QAnon content. The new policy doesn't ban individuals from posting about the movement.

The company said the new policy was based in part on an increased understanding of how QAnon messaging is evolving. "We aim to combat this more effectively with this update that strengthens and expands our enforcement against the conspiracy theory movement," the company said in a statement. Facebook also said it expects renewed attempts to evade detection and that it could update its content policies as needed.

The QAnon conspiracy theory centers on the idea that a powerful group of child traffickers control the world and are undermining President Trump with the help of other elites and mainstream news outlets. Last year a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office warned that QAnon and other conspiracies could spark violence in the U.S., and QAnon adherents have discussed future plans to round up or kill members of the supposedly evil cabal.

President Trump in August welcomed the support of QAnon followers and said while he knew little about the movement, he suggested those who subscribe to it are "people who love our country."

Social-media companies have received mixed reactions to their policies around rule violators, with some arguing that the companies are stifling free speech and others wanting them to take a tougher stance.

Microsoft Corp.-owned LinkedIn has recently taken steps to remove QAnon posts with misleading information in response to more supporters going public on the career-networking platform. Twitter Inc. has also pledged to increase enforcement against QAnon conspiracy followers.

Policing QAnon content is just one of the broad content-moderation issues that the world's largest social-media companies are facing. Platforms have been grappling with the spread of misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic as well as groups connected to the boogaloo movement. Its adherents views' are wide-ranging, with a focus on overturning authority, according to researchers who track extremist organizations.

Facebook and Twitter both moved Tuesday to place limits on posts by President Trump in which he claimed the coronavirus isn't as deadly as the common flu. The statement is widely considered false by medical professionals. Facebook removed Mr. Trump's comment, while Twitter appended a notice to his tweet explaining that it violated its rules on spreading harmful information related to the virus. Twitter said it didn't remove the tweet because it "may be in the public's interest" to remain accessible.

A report last month from research firm Graphika Inc. draws a connection between QAnon's online activities and those who strive to play down the importance of health matters such as vaccinations.

"The QAnon worldview has acted as a catalyst for the convergence of online networked conspiracy communities, anti-[vaccination] and anti-tech alike," Graphika said in its report. "In our Covid-19 maps, the core QAnon community and the Trump support group were both deeply interconnected on a network level and mutually amplifying each other's content and narratives."

--Jeff Horwitz contribute to this article.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 06, 2020 20:05 ET (00:05 GMT)

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