TikTok Is Banning Accounts That Spread QAnon Theories And Disinformation

Topline

In an election cycle that has seen major social media firms seek to stop the spread of QAnon that has grown in popularity across the different platforms, TikTok is ramping up its existing restrictions and is banning content and accounts that spread the sprawling and unfounded conspiracy theory, NPR reports.

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Key Facts

“Content and accounts that promote QAnon violate our disinformation policy and we remove them from our platform,” TikTok confirmed to Forbes in a statement.

The company added that it took “significant steps” to make QAnon content and hashtags harder to find, with the platform redirecting related terms to their community guidelines.

NPR reports that accounts sharing content related to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, which has exploded in popularity in recent years, will be deleted.

TikTok told Forbes that the policy had been in place “for a while”, however, the move appears to have been “quietly” confirmed to Media Matters earlier this month, before being confirmed to NPR on Sunday.

Big Number

488 million. That’s how many combined views were racked up across 14 QAnon-related hashtags on TikTok as of June this year, according to Media Matters.

Key Background

TikTok’s latest move against QAnon builds on restrictions introduced in July, in which the platform removed related hashtags such as QAnonTruth, Fall Cabal and Out of Shadows from search results, but videos using those hashtags could still be viewed, the BBC reports. The Chinese-owned app joins the likes of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook in cracking down on the spread of the movement that was sparked in 2017 by an anonymous message on the 4Chan website, claiming to be from a U.S. government official with top security clearance. From a fringe corner of the internet, the wild and false claims that President Donald Trump is fighting a secret war against a Satan-worshipping pedophile ring involving high-profile figures has spread onto mainstream social media, and improbably become a talking point during presidential debates, while several of its supporters are running for Congress.

Tangent

TikTok itself is still locked in a battle to remain active in the U.S., after President Trump, as part of his wider crackdown on Chinese tech firms over national security concerns, threatened to essentially ban the app unless it finds a U.S. buyer by November 12.