Twitter Purges Over 70,000 Accounts Sharing ‘Harmful QAnon-Associated Content’
Mary Margaret Olohan /
Twitter has reportedly purged over 70,000 accounts from its platform for sharing “harmful QAnon-associated content.”
The social media website began cracking down on Twitter activity after rioters supporting President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol on Wednesday, committing acts of vandalism and postponing the certification process as members of Congress were forced to evacuate the building.
In a blog post dated Jan. 12, Twitter announced that “many of the individuals impacted by this updated enforcement action held multiple accounts, driving up the total number of accounts impacted.”
We’re keeping you informed of all the steps we’re taking to protect the public conversation. We’ve summarized our recent enforcement actions and what you can expect from us moving forward. https://t.co/TCfrQMo6lJ
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) January 12, 2021
“Since Friday, more than 70,000 accounts have been suspended as a result of our efforts, with many instances of a single individual operating numerous accounts,” Twitter said in the blog post. “These accounts were engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service.”
Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy told The Daily Caller News Foundation that “QAnon is a group that we assess via our coordinated harmful activity framework.”
Conservative Twitter users began to voice complaints that their accounts were losing large quantities of followers beginning Wednesday. By Friday evening, numerous large conservative Twitter accounts had posted saying they had lost several thousand followers. The purging has continued through Tuesday.
Twitter’s blog post noted that its enforcement “has resulted in changes in follower count for some people’s Twitter accounts,” and “in some cases, these actions may have resulted in follower count changes in the thousands.”
Twitter is also aggressively monitoring content that violates its civic integrity policy, according to the blog post.
“Now that the results of the election have been officially certified by Congress, we updated our Civic Integrity policy on Friday to aggressively increase our enforcement action on these claims,” the post said. “The updated policy provides details about how we enforce against violations of this policy, including repeated sharing of Tweets that receive warning labels. Ultimately, repeated violations of this policy can result in permanent suspension.”
Twitter has not clarified what it considers “harmful QAnon-associated content.”
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