Twitter announced on Monday that it banned more than 70,000 accounts that share content around the QAnon conspiracy theory in the wake of the riot that broke out on Capitol last week.
The social media giant confirmed in a blog post who removed the accounts as part of an effort after last week’s riot “to protect the conversation on our service from attempts to incite violence, organize attacks and share deliberately misleading information about the outcome of the election.”
“We make it clear that we will take strict enforcement measures over behavior that has the potential to cause harm offline. Given the violent events in Washington, DC, and the increased risk of harm, we began to permanently suspend thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon, ”said the blog post.
Twitter said that “many” of the individuals affected by the ban “had multiple accounts” that shared content around the QAnon conspiracy theory, which states without foundation that President Trump
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The now banned accounts “were involved in sharing harmful content not associated with QA on a large scale and were mainly dedicated to the spread of this conspiracy theory.”
Twitter last week accounts permanently suspended for former national security adviser Michael Flynn, pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and former 8kun administrator Ron Watkins as part of efforts to crack down on content related to the QAnon theory.
Flynn, who was Trump’s first national security adviser, has been one of the most visible supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Twitter also permanently suspended Trump’s account on Friday, claiming that his tweets represent “the risk of further incitement to violence”.
“After a detailed analysis of recent tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them – specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter – we have permanently suspended the account,” the company wrote in a blog last week.
Twitter is not alone in Silicon Valley in stepping up efforts to contain disinformation after the riot among pro-Trump protesters last week on Capitol Hill. Facebook announced on Monday that it is removing content that contains the phrase “stop stealing”.
“With continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the U.S. presidential election that can lead to violence, and the use of the term by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC, we are taking another step in preparing for inauguration, ”, Said the company in a blog.
The riot in the Capitol building, which occurred during Congressional certification of the results of the Electoral College in the 2020 election, resulted in at least five deaths, including a Capitol police officer.