Facebook removes hundreds of QAnon groups, citing public safety risks

Facebook Inc Facebook said on Wednesday it had removed nearly 800 QAnon conspiracy groups for posts celebrating violence, showing intent to use weapons, or attracting followers with patterns of violent behaviour.

The world’s biggest social network, saying it was expanding its policy on perceived risks to public safety, also imposed restrictions on the remaining 1,950 public and private QAnon groups it could find. It will no longer recommend them to users and make them less likely to be discovered in searches.

Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users are known to belong to one or more QAnon groups, but Facebook declined to give more precise figures.