YouTube is taking a new step to crack down on the QAnon movement; starting today, the platform will ban videos that claim certain individuals or groups—such as celebrities and public figures—are complicit in the conspiracy.
QAnon supporters tend to believe there’s a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, who allegedly include Hollywood stars and Democratic politicians. So YouTube’s new policy is poised to encompass numerous videos devoted to promoting the pro-Trump conspiracy theory.
On Thursday, YouTube announced the change as another measure to prevent hate and harassment on the popular video-sharing platform. The Google-owned service specifically called out QAnon as a conspiracy theory that’s been used “to justify real-world violence.”
Most recently, QAnon supporters have been spotted amplifying falsehoods online that the wildfires on the US West Coast are part of a secret political plot from Antifa. Other QAnon supporters have plotted to kill presidential candidate Joe Biden or been arrested for trying to stop alleged pedophiles and child sex trafficking.
“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,” YouTube wrote in the blog post. “One example would be content that threatens or harasses someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies, such as QAnon or Pizzagate.”
The platform announced the change days after CNN interviewed YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, who refrained from pledging to ban QAnon videos from the video-sharing service.
A YouTube spokesperson said today’s announcement isn’t a ban on videos promoting QAnon. But the platform expects the policy change to have a significant impact on QAnon content circulating over the service. And indeed, journalists are already starting to notice numerous QAnon channels are getting shut down.
YouTube also points out it’s already been taking a harder line against conspiracy theory videos, which have included QAnon content. In some cases, the QAnon videos have been deleted for threatening violence; in other cases, YouTube has down-ranked the content over misinformation, making it harder to find.
“In fact, when we looked at QAnon content, we saw the number of views that come from non-subscribed recommendations to prominent Q-related channels dropped by over 80 percent since January 2019,” YouTube wrote.
“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,” the platform added.
YouTube plans to ramp up enforcement of the policy in the coming weeks in the midst of the presidential election. However, the platform points out news videos documenting the QAnon movement will remain untouched.