Twitter is cracking down on QAnon, deletes 7,000 accounts and limits 150,000 more

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Twitter is home to a range of opinions, some innocent, some ignorant, and some downright harmful. QAnon falls into that last category. The conspiracy group, which seems to gain followers every day, comes from some obscure 4chan posts where someone, claiming to be a high-ranking military insider, discusses the “deep state,” celebrities embroiled in child sex trafficking and devil worship, and of course, Donald Trump.

It’s a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, filled with unresearched claims, quotes taken out of context, and plenty of New World Order talk splashed in. It not only holds no weight but can be harmful, as sites like Twitter help spread these theories around, making believers out of otherwise logical human beings.

Now, Twitter is hoping to slow the spread of QAnon, announcing that it will be deleting accounts and limiting others that have a history of spreading these conspiracy theories.

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.

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) July 22, 2020

According to a Twitter spokesperson, the social platform has already banned around 7,000 accounts, while also limiting the reach of an additional 150,000. This is being accomplished by blocking QAnon-related URLs, stopping QAnon-related queries from trending, and more.

While QAnon members will obviously see this as just another sign of the Deep State and an attempt by social media companies to silence their voice (even though there is no proof of that), Twitter has had tools in place to stop things from trending that doesn’t fall within its guidelines since at least 2018.

What do you think? Glad to see Twitter taking a stand against QAnon? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Josiah Motley

Former KnowTechie editor.