Facebook says it will ban QAnon across its platforms

Facebook expanded a ban on QAnon-related content on its various social platforms Tuesday, deepening a previous prohibition on QAnon-related groups that had “discussed potential violence,” according to the company.

Today’s move by Facebook to not only ban violent QAnon content but “any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon” is an escalation by the social giant to clean its platform ahead of an increasingly contentious election.

QAnon is a sprawling set of interwoven pro-Trump conspiracy theories that has taken root inside swaths of the American electorate. Its more extreme adherents have been charged with terrorism after acting out in violent and dangerous ways, spurred on by their adherence to the unusual and often incoherent belief system. BuzzFeed News recently decided to call QAnon a “collective delusion,” another apt title for the theory’s inane, fatuous and dangerous beliefs.