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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

According to NBC News [nbcnews.com], millions of followers of QAnon have been surreptiously gathering in Facebook.

An internal investigation by Facebook has uncovered thousands of groups and pages, with millions of members and followers, that support the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to internal company documents reviewed by NBC News.

The investigation’s preliminary results, which were provided to NBC News by a Facebook employee, shed new light on the scope of activity and content from the QAnon community on Facebook, a scale previously undisclosed by Facebook and unreported by the news media, because most of the groups are private.

The top 10 groups identified in the investigation collectively contain more than 1 million members, with totals from more top groups and pages pushing the number of members and followers past 3 million. It is not clear how much overlap there is among the groups.

Remember, just because it is a conspiracy theory, that does not mean that it is not false!

The investigation will likely inform what, if any, action Facebook decides to take against its QAnon community, according to the documents and two current Facebook employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The company is considering an option similar to its handling of anti-vaccination content, which is to reject advertising and exclude QAnon groups and pages from search results and recommendations, an action that would reduce the community’s visibility.

An announcement about Facebook’s ultimate decision is also expected to target members of “militias and other violent social movements,” according to the documents and Facebook employees.

Facebook has been key to QAnon's growth, in large part due to the platform's Groups feature, which has also seen a significant uptick in use since the social network began emphasizing it in 2017. [nbcnews.com]

In case you do not know:

QAnon is a right-wing conspiracy theory that originally formedaround the idea that President Donald Trump is leading a secret war against the “deep state,” a group of political, business and Hollywood elites who, according to the theory, worship Satan and abuse and murder children. These baseless claims emerge from posts by an anonymous user on a fringe internet forum who goes by “Q.”

QAnon grew out of the “pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophilia ring from a Washington pizza shop. Many of the most popular QAnon groups are also pizzagate groups, according to the leaked documents.

Both pizzagate and QAnon have been implicated in real-world violence, including armed standoffs, attempted kidnappings, harassment campaigns, a shooting and at least two murders — events noted by Facebook as part of its investigation, according to the documents. In 2019, the FBI designated QAnon as a potential domestic terrorist threat.

And, interestingly,

Facebook has taken down QAnon accounts before, but previous removals have been based on behavior rather than content that violated policy. Last week, Facebook removed a QAnon group with nearly 200,000 members “for repeatedly posting content that violated our policies,” according to a Facebook spokesperson. In May, Facebook purged a small section of the U.S. QAnon community that included five pages, six groups and 20 profiles, citing “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” whereby accounts work together to push content and obscure their own networks.

Last week, Facebook removed 35 Facebook accounts, three pages and 88 Instagram accounts that operated from Romania and pushed pro-Trump messages, including the promotion of QAnon.

Hmm, Romania. I would have thought Hungary, it is so much more Urbane.

Original Submission