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In the face of this, the QAnon conspiracy seems to have disappeared from major social media sites. But that is not the case.
Not so popular on Facebook today are popular QAnon phrases like “big wake-up”, “storm” or “trust the plan”. Facebook and Twitter have removed tens of thousands of accounts devoted to baseless conspiracy theory, portraying former President Donald Trump as a hero fighting a sect of pedophiles who worship devils who dominate big business, the media, and the government in Hollywood.
Gone are the giant “Stop the Steal” groups that are spreading falsehoods about the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Trump has also disappeared, is permanently banned from Twitter and has suspended posting on Facebook until 2023.
But QAnon is a long way off. Federal intelligence officials recently warned that their adherence could lead to more violence, such as the deadly January 6 Capitol Uprising. They have chosen at least one open for QAnon for Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene. QAnon has grown up over the past four years since someone called himself “Q” and started posting enigmatic messages on Internet discussion boards.
QAnon currently encompasses a variety of conspiracy theories, ranging from evangelical or religious angles to alleged pedophilia in Hollywood. Jeffrey Epstein’s scandal, said Jared Holt, a resident member of Atlantic Council’s DFRLab, which focuses on the far end of the house. “Things with a specific Q are declining,” he said. But the worldviews and conspiracy theories that QAnon absorbed are still around.
Linking these movements together is a general distrust of a strong and often leftist elite. Among them are providers of vaccine counterfeiting, the 2020 presidency’s adherence to Trump’s “Big Lie”. they stole the election and those who believe in any other worldview are convinced that the shadow cabal controls things in secret.
It is much more difficult for social platforms to deal with this faceless, changing and increasingly popular way of thinking than they have practiced in the past.
These ideologies “have established their place and are now part of American folklore,” said Max Rizzuto, another researcher at DFRLab. “I don’t think we’ll ever see it go away.”
Online, groups like this are mixed in the background. Where Facebook groups used to refer openly to QA, the group now has a headline that refers to a “mainstream media” page that has more than 4,000 followers since you lost “MSM”. Fox News has links to Tucker Carlson’s clips and articles from right-wing publications such as Newsmax and Daily Wire.
A sticker with the slogan QAnon can be seen in a truck that took part in the caravan parade on September 5, 2020 in Adairsville (Georgia, USA). [File: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters]
The issue is based on alleged crimes ranging from alleged crimes to widespread electoral fraud and claiming an “absolute war against conservatives”. Such groups aim to attract more followers in less regulated areas, such as Gab or Speak.
When DFRLab surveyed more than 40 million occurrences of phrase expressions and related terms in QAnon at the beginning of the year, it saw a significant reduction in their presence on major platforms in recent months. DFRLab found that after the mid-2020 peaks and shortening on January 6, ordinary QAnon phrases evaporate from major sites.
So while users don’t post wild conspiracies about Hillary Clinton drinking children’s blood, vaccines will repeat inappropriate claims that can alter your DNA.
There are a number of reasons to narrow the Q debate: Trump’s loss of the presidential election, for example, and the lack of new “Q” messages. It seems that the most important factor has been the repression of QAnon on Facebook and Twitter. Even though the well-documented flaws have revealed the enforcements, the expulsion seems to have worked. It’s harder today to find clear QAnon accounts on major social networks, at least from publicly available data, such as data that doesn’t include hidden Facebook groups and private messages.
Although QAnon’s team, pages, and basic accounts are gone, many of their supporters remain on the big platforms – now they’re just camouflaging the language and watering down the most extreme principles of QAnon to make them more enjoyable.
“A very explicit effort was made within the QAnon community to camouflage their language,” said Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters, a liberal research group that has followed QAnon’s rise. “So a lot of code stopped triggering the use of keywords that were creating triggers and enforcement actions against them.”
Other escapes may have helped as well. For example, rather than avoiding Q slogans, for example, earlier this year, supporters would write three asterisks next to the name to indicate adherence to the conspiracy theory. That’s a nod to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn Trump, a three-star general.
Facebook said it has removed 3,300 pages, 10,500 groups, 510 events, 18,300 Facebook profiles and 27,300 Instagram accounts for violating its anti-QAon policy. “We continue to consult with experts and improve our enforcement to respond to how damage develops, including resurrected teams,” the company said in a statement.
Social giants will still cut back on people who post about peace in QAnon, and warned that banning the adherence of Q individuals “could lead to more social isolation and risk,” the company said. Facebook’s policies and responses to QAnon continue to evolve. Since last August, the company said it has added dozens of new terms to the movement and its language as it has evolved.
Twitter, meanwhile, said it has taken steps against activities that could lead to offline harm. In the aftermath of the January 6 uprising, the company began constantly suspending thousands of accounts “primarily” dedicated to sharing dangerous material in QAnon. Twitter has said it has so far suspended 150,000 such accounts. Like Facebook, the company said its response is also evolving.
But the repression may be too late. Caruson, for example, noted that Facebook banned QAnon in a broader way six weeks before the QAnon group banned it in connection with the violence. This effectively warned followers to reunite, camouflage, and move to different platforms.
“If it was time for a social media company to take a stand on QAnon content, it would be like a month or a few years ago,” Rizzuto told DFRLabs.
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