YouTube Bans QAnon, Deletes Many Major Accounts

October 15, 2020 Extremists, Fake News

The Washington Post reports:

YouTube on Thursday became the latest social media giant to take steps to stop QAnon, the sprawling pro-Trump conspiracy theory community whose online fantasies about a cabal of satanic pedophiles running the world have spilled over into offline violence.

The company announced in a blog post that it was updating its hate speech and harassment policies to prohibit “content that targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence.”

The new policy will prohibit content promoting QAnon, as well as related conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate, which falsely claims that top Democrats and Hollywood elites are running an underground sex-trafficking ring from the basement of a Washington pizza restaurant.

Bloomberg News reports:



Technology platforms have released a blitz of new rules to curb misinformation after mounting momentum for movements such as QAnon. Twitter Inc. recently said it would make it harder for people to find tweets supporting QAnon, while Etsy Inc. removed QAnon-related merchandise from its online marketplace.

Pressure for these companies to act has been building for months. YouTube already instituted a policy similar to Twitter’s, although it did not publicize it.

Starting last year, the service began to treat QAnon videos as “borderline content,” meaning the clips are recommended and shown in search results less often. Views from recommendations on “prominent” QAnon videos have dropped 80% since then, the company said.

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