Facebook purges more accounts related to QAnon

The social network said earlier this month to remove any Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content.

San Francisco: Facebook has removed about 1,700 Pages, 5,600 Groups and about 18,700 Instagram accounts representing far-right conspiracy theory group QAnon.

In August, Facebook expanded its dangerous individuals and organisations policy to address militarised social movements and violence-inducing conspiracy networks, such as QAnon.

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“Since then, we’ve identified over 600 militarised social movements, removing about 2,400 Pages, 14,200 Groups and about 1,300 Instagram accounts they maintained,” Facebook said in an update on Tuesday.

The social network said earlier this month to remove any Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content.

“We are continuing to strengthen our enforcement by identifying additional militarised social movements, and removing more Groups, Pages and Instagram accounts tied to QAnon,” the company said.

QAnon emerged in the US President Donald Trump era and its supporters believe that Trump is waging a hidden battle against a secretive elite known as the “Deep State”.

Antifa is another anti-fascist political movement in the US, comprising a diverse array of autonomous groups that aim to achieve their objectives through the use of both non-violent and violent direct action rather than through policy reform.