Facebook turns off the accounts of QAnon conspirators

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Supporters of the QAnon movement at a Trump event in August

Photo: Matt Rourke / AP

In the US election campaign, QAnon recently gained media attention - also because numerous Republican politicians openly flirt with the conspiracy theories movement.

Now Facebook is tightening its approach.

In the future, all Facebook pages and groups and all Instagram accounts that represent QAnon are to be deleted, as the online network announced on Tuesday.

In mid-August, Facebook initially only announced that it would take action against QAnon supporters if they threatened to use violence or if they talked about it.

The central claim of the QAnon supporters is that there is a conspiracy against US President Donald Trump in the deeper layers of the US government apparatus.

They also often claim that prominent Democratic Party politicians in the United States have been treated with hormones made from the blood of children.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, billionaire George Soros and various Hollywood stars are involved in this.

Many QAnon messages are anti-Semitic.

Even President Donald Trump had not distanced himself from the conspiracy theorists in the past.

On the contrary: at the end of August, when asked specifically, he let slip the chance to differentiate himself from the dangerous fantasies of the QAnon followers.

"As I understand, they like me very much, which I appreciate," Trump said at the time.

He doesn't know much about the movement.

But he heard that it was growing in popularity.

And: "I've heard that it's people who love our country."

The president can't see a problem with the content

When asked specifically by a reporter that QAnon supporters believed he was saving the world "from a satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals," Trump said, "I didn't hear that. But is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? If so I can help save the world from problems, I am ready to do so. "

His government is already saving the world from "radical left philosophy".

In the USA and other countries, the pressure on the operators of the large online networks to take action against hateful messages and false messages has increased significantly in recent months.

The companies took a number of measures against such content.

Facebook, which is even exposed to a large-scale advertising boycott, responded and announced an expansion of its action against hatred and agitation.

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jok / dpa