Facebook announced Tuesday, October 6 the withdrawal of all accounts, pages and groups linked to the conspiratorial movement "QAnon", on its main platform and on Instagram, while the number of followers of this pro-Trump far-right movement exploded in the run-up to the US presidential election.
The social media giant, regularly accused by civil society of not sufficiently fighting against actors spreading hatred, had already cracked down on QAnon on several occasions.
This time, even the pages which "do not contain violent content" will be deleted if they are associated with the movement, the Californian group said in a statement.
Facebook has indeed noticed that supporters of these many conspiratorial theories went from one subject to another to constantly rally new audiences.
Several weeks to overcome it
"While we removed content related to QAnon that celebrated and supported violence, we saw other content (from the movement) on other forms of danger in real life", relates the social network.
For example, "claims that certain groups of people are behind the wildfires on the West Coast (of the United States)," Facebook continues.
The company has specified that it will take several weeks to deal with the occurrences.
In August, it had already withdrawn nearly 800 groups, 100 pages and 1,500 advertisements directly related to this movement on Facebook.
She had also taken steps to reduce the reach of more than 10,000 Instagram accounts and nearly 2,000 groups and 440 Facebook pages, such as limiting recommendations, demoting them on news feeds, making them harder to find. find, stop them from advertising or selling products.
"People who love our country," says Trump
"We have seen movements grow which, even if they do not directly organize violence, celebrate violent acts, show they have weapons and suggest they are going to use them, or have fans susceptible to violent behavior. ", then explained the group.
Asked about QAnon in August, following Facebook's measures, Donald Trump said he saw in them above all "people who love our country".
"I don't know much about them. I understood that they like me very much, which I appreciate," he added, suggesting that their recent surge in popularity was linked to the protests that took place. place in Portland (northwest) or New York, against racism and police violence.
With AFP
The summary of the week
France 24 invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 application
google-play-badge_FR