Facebook on Tuesday said that it would ban the QAnon conspiracy theory across the platform.
The move comes a week after the social media giant said it would prohibit ads about QAnon from appearing.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Facebook said it would remove Facebook Pages, Groups, and Instagram accounts about QAnon. Over the summer, Facebook said it would try and stop the spread and influence of QAnon.
While the ban will start today, the social media giant said that it will “take time and need to continue in the coming days and weeks.”
“Starting today, we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content,” the company said in a blog post. “This is an update from the initial policy in August that removed Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon when they discussed potential violence while imposing a series of restrictions to limit the reach of other Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts associated with the movement.”
Facebook says since August 19, when it announced that it would begin cracking down on QAnon content, it has removed 1,500 Pages and Groups for QAnon. As for the new ban, a Facebook spokesperson told NBC News that it would not be “going after individual posts” about QAnon, but rather just accounts and pages about it.
Last week, Facebook announced that it would ban QAnon ads and would direct people to “credible child safety resources when they search for certain child safety hashtags,” citing the “savethechildren” tag that has been co-opted by QAnon recently.
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