a bizarre unfounded malicious conspiracy
theory has shifted from the message
boards to the mainstream cunan has
really moved from what was a bunch of
kind of misinformation in general to
actually planning different types of
violence in the real world and now the
world's most popular platform is trying
to stop it but can Q Anon be contained
well first let's deal with what it is q
anon's a conspiracy theory movement
built around two Central false beliefs
one that Q is a powerful person perhaps
even president Trump who posts Clues to
guide followers towards the truth and
two that President Trump is waging a war
against Satan worshiping pedophiles
among the world's Elite a complete lack
of evidence hasn't stopped Q Anon it
began on the message boards 4chan and
Han before rapid expansion on Facebook
Instagram Twitter Reddit and YouTube and
during the pandemic interest has surged
in response we've seen the platforms
take action in July Twitter banned
thousands of accounts now Facebook is
doing the same it says our dangerous
organizations operations team will
proactively detect content for removal
and note the name of that team Facebook
considers Q Anon dangerous Twitter says
it wants to prevent Q Anon causing
offline harm but what danger and harm
are we talking about well that brings us
to the Crux of this issue how Q anon's
misinformation connects to democracy and
violence while on violence here we have
the FBI in 2019 saying Q Anon is
occasionally driving both groups and
individual extremists to carry out
criminal or violent acts one man
barricaded himself to a bridge near the
Hoover Dam with an armored vehicle
another shot dead in New York mob boss
he scrawled Q on his hand in court there
are other examples too then there's
democracy and in particular Q anon's
impact on the U.S election a great deal
of people who are not particularly
political may have been converted via
Facebook or other social media groups
and now have very bizarre ideas about
the Democratic party certainly Q Anon is
often visible when Trump supporters
gather it's also influential in protests
against covid restrictions around the
world cunan's misinformation is
definitely impacting America's
Democratic discourse but containing it
well that looks close to Mission
Impossible you suspect Facebook is well
aware of this its statement on closing Q
Anon account says this work will take
time and will continue in the coming
days and weeks I'd add months and years
to that for four reasons first Q anon's
messaging and location constantly
evolves honestly they're up against an
idea and it's going to be a bit of a
whack-a-mole I think all across social
media for quite a while second there's
no agreement on what online content is
okay in May Mark Zuckerberg said I just
believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't
be the Arbiter of truth of everything
that people say online and the internet
is full of people all saying things that
are false whether it's realistic or even
desirable to try and stop that is not a
settled issue on Facebook or elsewhere
online point three well that concerns
the very nature of the web this is the
journalist James ball across the open
web there are millions of sites and it's
much more complex tackling them clearly
the tech Giants can do more but we can't
expect them to police the entire
internet and the fourth point is this
but it became sort of a Whirlpool of all
conspiracy theories it sort of collected
other conspiracy theories about the
Illuminati and the Kennedys and the more
the Q Anon becomes a Whirlpool a
catch-all for spiraling distrust and
Authority the harder it is to contain
meanwhile the Q Anon story has reached
this perhaps inevitable Moment The New
York Times reports Q Anon Believers say
being banned from Facebook is proof of
the conspiracy which of course it isn't
but the ban and their reaction to it is
proof of the strength of their
convictions and is another reason why
containing their movement remains
profoundly difficult
foreign