Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey addresses students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) on November 12, 2018 in New Delhi, India.
Amal KS | Hindustan Times | Getty Images
Twitter announced on Monday night that it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts associated with the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.
“These accounts were involved in sharing harmful content not associated with QA on a large scale and were mainly dedicated to spreading this conspiracy theory across the service,” the company said in a blog post.
The suspensions come after the company said on Friday that it would permanently remove accounts that share QAnon’s content. The company on Friday suspended the accounts of Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, supporters of President Donald Trump.
The company’s stock closed down more than 6% on Monday. It was the first trading session since Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account.
The Twitter announcement comes at a time when social media companies are stepping up their efforts to free their services from content that could lead to violence, such as insurgency events on the US Capitol.
Earlier on Monday, Facebook said it would remove content containing the phrase “stop stealing” from its services before President-elect Joe Biden took office on January 20.
See too: Op-ed – Time for Congress to hold social media companies accountable