YouTube announced on Thursday that it will ban content that promotes the QAnon theory. YouTube follows both Facebook and Twitter, which have both made an active effort to curb the presence of the QAnon movement on their respective platforms.
According to a report by NBC News, YouTube announced on Thursday that it has removed a significant portion of content related to the QAnon conspiracy theory from its website. The company claims that the move was motivated by a desire to enforce a pre-existing policy on conspiracy content.
In a blog post, YouTube described its efforts to restrict QAnon content. YouTube claims that they have removed thousands of QAnon videos and hundreds of channels. The company says that restricting access to QAnon videos will limit real-world violence.
Additionally, we’ve removed tens of thousands of QAnon-videos and terminated hundreds of channels under our existing policies, particularly those that explicitly threaten violence or deny the existence of major violent events. All of this work has been pivotal in curbing the reach of harmful conspiracies, but there’s even more we can do to address certain conspiracy theories that are used to justify real-world violence, like QAnon.
YouTube said that it will additionally block baseless accusations against individuals or groups that could result in real-world violence. YouTube specifically cited QAnon and Pizzagate as two movements that they believe could promote violence.
Today we’re further expanding both our hate and harassment policies to prohibit content that targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence. One example would be content that threatens or harrasses someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies, such as QAnon or Pizzagate. As always, context matters, so news coverage on these issues or content discussing them without targeting individuals or protected groups may stay up. We will begin enforcing this updated policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come.
Breitbart News reported this year that both Facebook and Twitter have cracked down on users that share and promote QAnon content.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.
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