Twitter has announced a major crackdown on accounts promoting the extremist QAnon conspiracy theory. The move comes as Facebook has allowed and profited off of at least 144 ads promoting the conspiracy theory in some manner for the past year and a half.
On July 21, Twitter announced that it would suspend thousands of accounts connected to QAnon, which has been tied to multiple acts of violence. According to NBC News, Twitter said it will also “stop recommending accounts and content related to QAnon, including material in email and follow recommendations, and it will take steps to limit circulation of content in features like trends and search.” NBC also reported that Twitter is now classifying “QAnon material and behavior as coordinated harmful activity,” and the network said an FBI memo warning that the conspiracy theory’s supporters presented a potential domestic terrorist threat factored into Twitter’s decision.
Since Twitter’s announcement, a CNN reporter and The New York Times have reported that Facebook is allegedly planning to crack down on QAnon in some fashion as well. Yet a review by Media Matters of Facebook’s ad library found that the platform has repeatedly featured and approved ads on Facebook and Instagram promoting QAnon since at least the beginning of 2019, meaning Facebook made money off of the conspiracy theory. Using the Dewey Square Adwatch toolset to analyze Facebook ad data, Media Matters found at least 144 ads promoting “QAnon” or its de facto slogan, “wwg1wga” (short for “where we go one, we go all”), that ran on Facebook and/or Instagram since the beginning of 2019, with at least 41 of those ads running in the last 30 days alone. These 144 ads could have yielded up to $14,356 for Facebook.
Two ads approved by the platform in February 2019, for example, came from an entity called “Concerned Citizens Of America” and featured multiple QAnon hashtags, such as “#wwg1wga” and “#Q.” One of the ads even featured an image of a “Q.” Another ad, in March 2019, promoted a YouTube show that included the phrase “#Qanon The punisher,” while another approved just this week is about a podcast that promotes QAnon.