Facebook, Twitter flounder in QAnon crackdown

In this Aug 2, 2018 file photo, a protesters holds a Q sign waits in line with others to enter a campaign rally with President Donald Trump in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. CHICAGO: Facebook and Twitter promised to stop encouraging the growth of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon, which fashions President Donald Trump as a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring run by celebrities and government officials, after it reached an audience of millions on their platforms this year.

“Their algorithm worked to radicalise people and really gave this conspiracy theory a megaphone with which to expand,” Sophie Bjork-James, an anthropologist at Vanderbilt University who studies QAnon, said of social platforms. “They are responsible for shutting down that megaphone. And time and time again they are proving unwilling.”The QAnon phenomenon sprawls across a patchwork of secret Facebook groups, Twitter accounts and YouTube videos.

That month, public posts on Facebook-owned Instagram featuring the #QAnon hashtag received an average of 1.27 million likes and comments every week, according to the analysis. And Twitter appears to be profiting from those QAnon accounts. Nearly all of the accounts the AP identified had ads showing in their feeds for big brand names that sell everything from beer to toilet paper.

Twitter said it has not banned QAnon from its site entirely, but says it doesn’t make QAnon tweets or accounts visible in searches or recommendations. Views of QAnon tweets has dropped by 50 per cent since its new rules took hold in July.

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