‘WWG1WGA’ Gone: Twitter Nukes 70K ‘Qanon’ Accounts

Twitter has been busy this week, that’s for sure.

The social media giant has been revising its rules and regulations at a nearly constant clip for the better part of the last 12 moths, fighting back against perceived misinformation on a number of subjects, from the coronavirus crisis to the Capitol riots.

Now, in the wake of the events of January 6th, Twitter is cracking down on Qanon conspiracy theorists, believing that the prevalence of the online community surrounding the Q mythos is a danger to our nation.

Twitter on Monday said they have suspended more than 70,000 accounts since Friday that were engaged in sharing “harmful QAnon-associated content,” which they say were dedicated to “the propagation of this conspiracy theory” across the platform.

In a post on Monday, Twitter said that they have been taking strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to “offline harm” in the wake of the Capitol riot last week.

There was no mistaking their reasoning.

“Given the violent events in Washington, DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon,” Twitter said Monday.

Twitter said that many of the individuals impacted by their updated enforcement action “held multiple accounts, driving up the total number of accounts impacted.”

“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. “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.”

Qanon conversations were likely increasing in frequency on Twitter after the shutdown of Parler – a social media site that allowed for far freer speech than Twitter.