Update (2/9/24): Following the publication of this article, the “Where We Buy 1 We Buy All” account is no longer active, with the Meta Ad Library listing the account as “unpublished or deleted.” This also means the account’s ads are no longer running.

Meta has allowed and apparently profited from multiple ads from a newly created account dedicated to selling merchandise promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory. These ads are running on Meta’s platforms years after the company banned advertising in support of the conspiracy theory.

In 2020, following years of QAnon’s growth on Meta’s platforms and a particular spike in the spread of such content during the coronavirus pandemic, the company announced a crackdown, banning accounts, groups, pages, and ads dedicated to the conspiracy theory. The company also said that it would “continue to strengthen our enforcement by identifying … new terms associated with QAnon.”

Despite Meta’s policies, an account called “Where We Buy 1 We Buy All” — seemingly a reference to the QAnon slogan “where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA” for short — launched in mid-January, apparently from Germany, on both Facebook and Instagram, calling itself “a brand new, unknown, online Clothing-Store” and a “Start-Up.”

The account’s logo features multiple QAnon phrases, including the QAnon slogan, and it features the slogan in its Facebook bio. Both the Facebook page and Instagram account promote a site selling multiple versions of what it calls a “Q-Shirt.” They have also repeatedly posted hashtags related to the conspiracy theory on both platforms, including “#QAnon,” “#WWG1WGA,” and “#GreatAwakeningWorldwide.”

From January 24 to 28, the account launched multiple ads on Facebook and Instagram dedicated to QAnon merchandise and the site. One of the ads even featured multiple QAnon phrases and a call to “embrace the Q-Shirt Revolution!” A shirt in the ad also featured text from a post from “Q,” QAnon’s central figure. According to the Meta Ad Library, the ads have been seen by “Accounts Center accounts” — a metric Meta calculates that is similar to impressions — more than 4,400 times combined in the European Union.

While most of its ads apparently appeared on Meta’s platforms in European Union countries, the account on February 4 launched an ad elsewhere, featuring a #WWG1WGA hashtag and promoting a QAnon shirt with an American flag.

The QAnon merchandise ads are just the latest chapter in Meta’s well-documented struggles to enforce its ban on extremist content and its long history of failing to enforce its advertising policies.

Additionally, the “Where We Buy 1 We Buy All” site, which also apparently launched in January, is “powered by Spotify,” even though that platform has previously taken down QAnon material and said that it considers “products and content promoting QAnon to be a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.”