Twitter to suspend 150,000 accounts in QAnon conspiracy theory crackdown
Twitter is taking action against more than 150,000 accounts in a widespread crackdown on the QAnon conspiracy theory movement.
The social media network said it would also block QAnon URLs from being shared and cease recommending content linked to the growing movement.
QAnon has grown from a fringe conspiracy theory on the edges of the internet three years ago to encompass supporters of President Donald Trump.
Its main theories are that there is a so-called deep state plot to get rid of Trump and that there is a global child abuse ring involvoing dozens of politicians and A-list celebrities.
Twitter said it has removed 7,000 QAnon accounts since it started taking action last week. The suspensions are set to see 150,000 more accounts blocked.
Overnight it said it hoped its action would extend to preventing “offline harm”.
“We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” Twitter said. “In line with this approach, this week we are taking further action on so-called ‘QAnon’ activity across the service.
“We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension — something we’ve seen more of in recent weeks.”
The tech giant said accounts violating policies while tweeting about QAnon would be permanently banned.
Last year the FBI labelled QAnon a possible domestic extremist threat.
Twitter’s crackdown comes after hackers managed to post bitcoin scam tweets on the profiles of major tech celebrities like Elon Musk and Bill Gates, as well as US presidential candidate Joe Biden.