Think for yourself? Facebook removes QAnon-related content as ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’

Tim Hinchliffe
Tue, 05 May 2020 19:56:17 +0000
Social Media, big tech, censorship, Facebook, perspective

Today, Facebook releases its Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior report for the month of April, saying it took down over 30 QAnon-related pages, accounts, and groups.

“We removed 5 Pages, 20 Facebook accounts, and 6 Groups that originated in the US and focused domestically,” Facebook reported.

“Our investigation linked this activity to individuals associated with the QAnon network known to spread fringe conspiracy theories. We found this activity as part of our internal investigations into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior ahead of the 2020 election in the US.”

Image from Facebook CIB report April, 2020

From the few samples Facebook gave, it appears that the social media platform censored content that portrayed the media as clowns as well as content from so-called alternative media.?

“We found this activity as part of our proactive investigations into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior in the US ahead of the 2020 election,” the report reads.

“Although the people behind this operation attempted to conceal their identities and coordination, our investigation found links to individuals associated with QAnon, a network known to spread fringe conspiracy theories.”

Image from Facebook CIB report April, 2020

According to Facebook, “The people behind this activity used fake accounts — some of which had already been detected and disabled by our automated systems — to create fictitious personas, like and comment on their own content making it appear more popular than it is, manage Pages and Groups, and evade detection and enforcement.

“They frequently posted about news and topics including the upcoming presidential election and candidates, the current US administration, anti-Semitic and anti-Asian conspiracies, and COVID-19.”

Facebook says, “We’re constantly working to find and stop coordinated campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate across our apps,” which I’m going to editorialize as meaning that having an opinion that goes against the mainstream narrative can be considered as manipulating public debate.

Think for Yourself

I’m going to break from the news now to add my own personal commentary because I have been following Q for over two years, and I see major differences from what Q actually posts and how followers interpret those posts without actually knowing if they are correct in their interpretations.

For those who haven’t heard of Q, the media portrays it as a right-wing conspiracy theory, and the media usually runs with stories that come from the beliefs of people who follow Q (some of the “anons”) instead of what Q actually posts — the latter of which can be quite cryptic.

So, when the media mentions “QAnon,” it’s not referring to any of the posts by Q. QAnon is a blanket term the media uses without going to the actual source.

Others believe that Q is a military intelligence operation that now uses 8Kun as a back channel to relay information of what is going on behind the scenes to the public.

The group known as Q has the luxury of plausible deniability in that the information it posts is heavily coded, sometimes blending allegedly real intelligence with disinformation, but it always leaves breadcrumbs for people to do the research and to think for themselves.

I think this is where the media, and now Facebook, gets Q wrong — they go after what Q followers interpret as their own truths rather than what Q actually posts.

So, Facebook is censoring a “QAnon Network,” but I don’t believe this network has any direct contact with the actual Q account that now posts on 8kun.

If you want to see what Q actually posts, you can find all the posts on qanon.pub to think for yourself and arrive at your own conclusions on their authenticity without all the noise of what other people think the posts mean.

All information, no matter what the source, should be viewed with a critical eye, including this report.

Below is a sample of a Q post for those not familiar.

Image from qanon.pub

Update October 26, 2020: This story was updated to provide more context on the difference between Q and QAnon.

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