A few days after the attack on the US Capitol by supporters of outgoing US President Donald Trump , Twitter announced that it had permanently deleted more than 70,000 accounts from its platform . The reason why the popular social media platform made this move was that these accounts were sharing content related to the “QAnon” movement. Twitter pointed out that many of the accounts were operated by a single user.
Specifically, Twitter said in a statement on January 11: “Given the violent incidents in Washington, D.C., and the heightened risk of injury, we began permanently deleting thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon. These accounts ended up sharing destructive QAnon-related articles at scale and were largely dedicated to spreading this conspiracy theory on the service.”
Among the photos released of individuals storming the Capitol was an image of Jake Angeli, a QAnon supporter who refers to himself as a "QAnon shaman."
QAnon followers hold a collection of beliefs that are widely considered conspiracy theories, one of which is that President Donald Trump is fighting against a group of prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and “deep state” allies who are involved in child sexual abuse.
The movement began in 2017 with some posts on 4chan by an individual who went by the nickname “Q.”
In August 2020, Facebook removed or restricted approximately 10,000 groups, websites, and accounts across the social network and Instagram associated with QAnon.
Additionally, YouTube has removed tens of hundreds of videos related to QAnon from its platform. In October 2020, the company said it was expanding its hate and harassment guidelines to prohibit content that targets a specific person or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to incite global violence. The company said it was also increasing enforcement against posts that share false information about the 2020 election
Other actions taken by Twitter include blocking users from replying, liking, or retweeting posts that have been flagged for violations, as well as banning specific trends that violate the platform's rules.
The Capitol invasion delayed the ratification of Joe Biden's election victory. Lawmakers were forced to flee as the building was besieged by supporters of the outgoing President. Five people were killed, including a Capitol police officer who was beaten while trying to clear the crowds.
