[ad_1] Twitter has banned the accounts of far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers and its founder, Stewart Rhodes. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group is one of the US’s largest anti-government movements. It claims to have tens of thousands of members, many of whom identify as former law enforcement and military. The group […]
Category: conspiracy theory
Facebook and Twitter push back against links to ‘Plandemic’ sequel
[ad_1] Facebook On Facebook, sharing a link to the video’s website is blocked straight away, as opposed to their initial steps with the first video that just limited its reach. Using Twitter the link is posted without a warning on the site, but clicking it takes viewers to an interstitial warning that link is “potentially […]
How QAnon went mainstream | Engadget
[ad_1] How QAnon spread That QAnon, a far right conspiracy theory that originated on 4Chan in 2017, could gain so much prominence might sound ridiculous. Proponents of QAnon believe the government is run by a ring of pedophiles/child-eating cannibals who will ultimately be brought down by Donald Trump. QANon’s favorite targets are somewhat predictable: the […]
Facebook removes massive QAnon group over hate and harassment claims
[ad_1] Facebook just took down one of the larger targets in its crackdown on QAnon conspiracy theories. The social network told Reuters that it had removed Official Q/Qanon, a group with almost 200,000 members, after multiple posts reportedly violated policies against harassment, hate, and potentially harmful misinformation. The shutdown took effect August 4th, Facebook said, […]
TikTok blocks QAnon hashtags amid larger crackdown
[ad_1] The company isn’t removing the videos using the hashtags, however. Followers will still see the affected clips in their feeds, and they could theoretically appear in the For You feed of suggested videos. We’ve asked TikTok if it can comment further on its decision. The approach isn’t as strict as with rivals that completely […]
Twitter bans thousands of QAnon accounts
[ad_1] We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension — something we’ve seen more of in recent weeks. — Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) July 22, 2020 “We will permanently suspend accounts […]
Twitter clumsily fact-checks ‘5G corona’ tweets
[ad_1] Twitter told Engadget that its labels are an “iterative process” and that it was focusing on tweets mentioning 5G and COVID-19 for now. The company also acknowledged that it might make mistakes, and that it would refine its process over time. You can read the official statement below. The fact checks could get irksome […]
Viral conspiracy theory video tests companies’ misinformation policies
[ad_1] “The roughly 26-minute ‘Plandemic Movie’ video claims to be an excerpt of a larger documentary to be released this summer and contains claims about the origins of the virus and how it spreads,” CNBC writes of the clip. “The video tries to argue that the coronavirus pandemic was created to make profits off vaccines. […]
UK carriers would appreciate you not setting cell towers on fire
[ad_1] The arson attacks against 5G masts in the UK have become serious enough that carriers are joining together to put a stop to the incidents. EE, O2, Three and Vodafone have issued a joint statement both urging people not to set fire to cellular masts, threaten engineers or spread conspiracy theories falsely linking 5G […]
YouTube will remove videos falsely linking COVID-19 to 5G
[ad_1] Instead, YouTube said it was suppressing “borderline content” that could mislead people in “harmful ways,” such as conspiracy theories surrounding 5G and the virus by themselves. This includes both reduced recommendations for videos, pulling them from search results and stripping them of ad revenue. The moves come not long after a Guardian report that […]