Facebook removes QAnon conspiracy group with 200k members - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53692545 <comment><USER2> I live in Hungary, there is a hungarian language COVID conspiracy group with 107k members atm. Reported them and nothing happened for weeks, they are growing easily. And I think nothing will happen.

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/Normalis.Elethez.Ragaszkodok...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/Normalis.Elethez.Ragaszkodok/)

There is not even a category to report them because Facebook only has limited options (nudity, harassment, hate speech, unauthorized sales, violence)

<comment><USER3> "The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas."

Alfred Whitney Griswold

It is not your or Facebook's job to censor people. Btw. Sweden made most of the things work what this particular group is asking for (no masks). Do you want to ban Sweden too?

<comment><USER4> This assumes people are "debating" in good faith, with the goal to reach an objective truth, which they are not.

<comment><USER5> So you understand people's unstated motivations and get to ban them from speaking based on that?

<comment><USER6> No, but if only one side is actually debating and the other is just trolling for reactions, there's no possibility for "good" ideas to ever even meet bad ones, much less defeat them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The question nobody's asking: WHY are people so dissatisfied with the conventional truth that they feel the need to seek out any alternative?

<comment><USER8> Theory: huge swathes of people are hugely dissatisfied with their lives; long hours, poor pay, lack of social mobility, poor education (as others have said) and they feel there must be some _thing_ tangible to blame for this. It's fertile ground for conspiracy theories to grow.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. QAnon is almost exclusively a "I am not happy with my life" support group.

<comment><USER9> I think the saying goes: The Queen doesn't say she is the queen, because everyone already knows.

The reverse is also true, if someone has to say they are important, then they are likely not actually important.

Applying this to the QAnon 'motto' of 'Where we go one, we go all', I think you can conclude that if they have to say it, then it's not true. Most adherents are then, mostly, alone.

The feeling of community and belonging that these people get is obviously missing in their lives otherwise. That they find these feelings via image macros, chat boxes, and videos speaks to the depth of loss they feel in their lives.

It's not an issue of misinformation, but I think, loneliness.

<comment><USER6> > 'Where we go one, we go all'

I never understood that as a moto. Right wingers are known for being hyper- individualistic, WWGOWGA seems like some quasi-socialist slogan.

But you are right, there are multiple crises of poverty, loneliness and poor education in the US. The thing that really baffles me are the "Q" followers that are none of these things, and aren't American.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Took them long enough. Same day as this hit the news: [https://www.salon.com/2020/08/08/republicans-paid-huge- stran...](https://www.salon.com/2020/08/08/republicans-paid-huge-strange-sums- to-facebook-and-a-mystery-company-for-list-acquisition/)

If Facebook disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't cry all that much.

<comment><USER11> I would lose contact with most of my friends, that would suck.

<comment><USER10> How quickly would you get back in touch with those you actually keep up with? And those that aren't actually your friends just people whose memes you like? Do they really add that much to your life?

<comment><USER12> I work from home and have a disabled wife plus a 5 year old doing remote learning. I never leave the house except for needed things. Losing social media would isolate me even more.

<comment><USER10> First off, hope you and your family are keeping yourself sanity through all this. As someone with kids about that age, this is rough.

I will point out that there are many really good social networks that don't also have the same problems as Facebook. Things like instant messaging groups, subreddits, Discord servers, phone calls, Imgur, etc. Every medium and platform has its drawbacks but I find that using multiple networks that aren't FB has been a huge boon to the quality and quantity of meaningful experiences I've had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is often assumed, including by several comments here, that membership in a group implies agreement with some or all of the content within the group. This is false and harmful. This faulty assumption can be used to exaggerate the popularity of niche beliefs, and ironically it may have self fulfilling effects - "can 200,000 people be wrong?"

In the physical world, where attending rallies or meetings costs time and physical effort, the assumption may be more valid. In the digital world, where group membership is almost costless, it fails.

<comment><USER14> When the argument ceases to be about the thing, and is instead about the group of people, it's lost.

With Covid, people were having scientific discussions around R0, transmission of viruses, etc. Then it became about hating "anti-maskers" and all that stopped.

Once it became about hating a group of people, all intelligent discussion immediately stopped. This same pattern plays out in almost every major news story in America.

<comment><USER15> I would be interested why this comment gets downvoted.

Because of language? _hating "anti-maskers"_?

Because it assumes that there's still something to discuss about covid?

<comment><USER16> GP's point comes off like an argument against pro-maskers which makes the point disingenuous. Their criticism is that scientific discussion stopped when the topic became politicized, but they're taking a political shot at the same time.

<comment><USER14> GP doesn't subscribe to any of the recent hate-this-group media tropes: anti- maskers, Karens, incels, protesters.

In case it wasn't clear from my comment, I think this stuff is at the very core of anti-intellectualism. People who rail against "pro-maskers" are just as inane as those who rail against "anti-maskers."

Please don't sign me up for either side of your made-up societal divisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is a good first step. I am tired of the reasoning that Facebook is somehow some sort of "common square" because "all my friends are there" and therefore their actions should be constrained by legal language.

One of the great things that the Internet does is make it possible for any group to make their own echo chamber (see Parler as an example), and complaining that people don't show up says more about the people who created it and less about the regulatory environment.

<comment><USER18> I'm surprised that you've been downvoted. It actually isn't that hard anymore to create your own little space where you can be as retarded as you wish.

Both chapo trap house and the Donald that were banned from Reddit quickly created their own websites.

What people are demanding is not just freedom of speech but the right to appear in everyones newsfeed no matter how dangerous or bigoted their views maybe. We tend to conflate the two freedoms.

<comment><USER17> I am not surprised by downvotes, it is an emotional topic on all sides. That makes up / down voting more emotion drive rather than perhaps argument driven.

Reputation systems like HN and Reddit, lack nuance in their expression. Does a downvote mean "I don't agree?", does it mean "I don't like you?", does it mean "This makes me mad?", does it mean "This comment doesn't add value?", or maybe "This comment is inaccurate."?

Because this sort of voting is such a blunt instrument, I don't see a lot of value in trying to tease out the "why" of up votes or down votes. At the end of the day, does it matter? Any comment on this site with regards to a link is just a data point amongst many from which the reader may develop an understanding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This removal is a conspiracy in a literal sense. The decision to interrupt the communications of 200,000 people was made in secret by an unknown group of Facebook personnel.

Even Ma Bell, in its most powerful and abusive days as a monopolist, would never have dreamed of enacting such hostility towards its users.

It's worth asking, for how long will people tolerate an increasingly unreliable communications infrastructure?

<comment><USER20> Facebook is not a 'communications infrastructure', is not a 'public square' and they have no obligation to do anything other than act lawfully, and then, to act roughly consistent with their own guidelines, which is what they are doing.

The comparison to 'Ma Bell' is irrelevant.

'Verizon or AT&T' \- the actual modern incarnations of 'Ma Bell' are not intervening here, nor will they.

If you want to make up stories about people raping children in basements, then yo can do that on your own website.

" for how long will people tolerate an increasingly unreliable communications infrastructure?"

This question is upside down.

The _real_ question is 'How long will most people tolerate a social network full of stupidity, make up stuff, fake news, and other garbage'?

QAnon is not the reason people use FB, it's the reason they leave.

<comment><USER21> > Facebook is not a 'communications infrastructure', is not a 'public square' > and they have no obligation to do anything other than act lawfully

De-facto it is both a 'communications infrastructure' and a 'public square' \- due to the simple fact that it is used as such by hundreds of millions of people.

The fact that they get away with pretending that they aren't is unfortunate. The fact that so many people are eager to defend this is sad, to say the least.

<comment><USER20> They absolutely not a public square, and it's sad that anyone thinks they have any right whatsoever to propagate invented lies about 'child molestors, secret rituals and anti-vaxx' information in any controlled community.

Facebook has always had policies concerning content, that was never up for debate.

There's really little to argue about here.

If you want to talk about Lizards in control of the White House, you can make your own web site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > A Facebook spokeswoman said the group was removed for "repeatedly posting > content that violated our policies".

At this point Facebook, Google, and all other operators of similar platforms should be viewing their hoard of user data, not as a gold mine, but as a superfund site.

The demise of these companies starts with demands to purge the platforms of "content violating policies." The only problem is that these polices can never quite be pinned down. So the takedowns will be all over the map, guided only by the prevailing wind.

These calls inevitably will lead to even more urgent calls to track the users of the objectionable content. After all, if the group was dangerous, so must be its users.

The problem is that there are infinite ways for humans to be offended. Each takedown ensures that the next round of calls will be that much louder and more insistent.

If you wanted to engineer the boringest platform possible, this is how you'd do it. Ad revenues will follow the departure of users for greener pastures.

</comment><comment><USER23> I would suggest that there is an element of fear involved when subscribing to the majority of conspiracy theories. Critical thinking and emotional intelligence are necessary, but fear supersedes intelligence and is easily manipulated.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a good step, but what the US needs the most at the moment is a stronger education system. Most of what we're seeing today is really just a symptom of a deeper issue.

<comment><USER24> How does more education prevent conspiracy theories? I've witnessed many highly educated friends (including some from outside the US) succumb to crazy conspiracy theories on Twitter.

This seems more like an emotional intelligence problem than anything else.

<comment><USER25> You are onto something very important. No one can be expert in every domain. So, one has to trust judgments of the people from other domains and institutions. However, if people with authority (not institutional authority) conflate science with policy positions, these 'authoritative' people and institutions lose their authority. That's how conspiracy theories emerge. Authoritative people and institutions have 'abused' their positions.

<comment><USER26> Here's a tentative conjecture.

People in power, in the West, are disproportionately lawyers with humanities skills, or business types with no skills (lol). As our society increasingly fails, knowledge of math and science is increasingly important to convey truth. Politicians have long repeated repeated what experts tell them (when they are telling the truth), but now that they are repeating something they cannot well understand themselves, it just comes us stale / on faith alone.

<comment><USER25> Lawyers are paid to defend their clients. Every politician is a lawyer by trade. What do they do? Defend the sectional interests of their sponsors. That's what we see in the West: general interests are subordinated to the corporatist/sectional interests. This is the expected result, anyway; it is just a matter of how long does it take to reach the state of "sectional interests taking over general interests".

<comment><USER26> I'm sorry but this just reads as vague pessimism to me

> Lawyers are paid to defend their clients. Every politician is a lawyer by > trade.

No, that would be true if "people paid to defend their clients are Lawyers". Lawyers offer a specific service to client, distinct from bodyguards and others who provide defense.

Politicians do want to get reelected, but there are many ways for that to be.

Nothing about politics is inherently sublimely, or sleazy things like ALEC inevitable. It rather the due to very specific problems in the US such as terrible voting systems.

> This is the expected result, anyway

To whom?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Of course, this exactly what a deep state conspiracy would do.

<comment><USER28> Except it's a corporation, not the government.

<comment><USER29> I see this is the tobacco strategy. They don't have to use our product. It's totally safe.

<comment><USER28> Oh don't get me started. Facebook is absolutely harming people and it should be regulated, if not broken up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> A drop in the ocean.

</comment><comment><USER31> This may just "prove" to them that there's a Big Conspiracy out to cove things up. It may be better to do things to slow it down -- shadow banning new posts (they appear for the poster, but nobody else can see them), delaying and losing a significant portion of posts, not putting it high in a person's feed even if subscribed, leaving it out of search results.

</comment><comment><USER32> We talk about how bad censorship is in China and North Korea but now we're applauding it within our own country?

To be clear, I'm against everything QAnon has done and have had numerous debates to disprove their theories and it is _exhausting_.

But it everyone's right to have their own beliefs. This _is_ a form of censorship. Facebook is a private platform and so has the right to do as they please, and we have the right to choose another platform -- but we shouldn't mistake what we're doing as some sort of noble act.

The right to freedom of thought isn't about defending your right when you agree with it, it's about defending the right even when you _don't agree_ with it.

<comment><USER28> All true, but the QAnon folks are bullying people, doxing people, and have actually killed people. It's no longer just a cute conspiracy theory. It's a movement with real actors attempting to destabilize democratic processes.

It's not the conspiracy itself. It's the people holding it up and actively opposing anyone that disagrees with them in harmful ways.

<comment><USER32> Hmm, that makes sense. My follow up question is how many of them are actually bad actors? Is it really many of them or is it actually just a few?

<comment><USER28> There's a confluence of Q adherents and KKK/racist folks who are more than willing to get violent, especially with 45 egging them on. There is evidence of Proud Boys who've been caught starting the looting in Minneapolis and Portland because they want to "start the race war".

The whole Q thing is dragging our most vulnerable citizens into a conspiracy that is probably run by a few nerds from 4chan who are using it to make cash and have a joke.

I picture these dorks, sitting in a basement, smoking dope, playing video games, throwing out suggestions to further the conspiracy.

Nerd 1: "Hey! Let's tell them JFK, Jr is alive and will come back to help Trump!"

Nerd 2: "Holy shit that's brilliant."

Nerd 3: "Tell then Trump will replace Pence with JFK, Jr as VP. That will totally rile them up."

Nerd 1: "Brilliant!"

Nerd 2: "This is so much fun. What a bunch of idiots."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Better join the [https://Fediverse.network](https://Fediverse.network) before it's too late and all you have left is complaints.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why are we against book burning but cheering moves like this?

<comment><USER35> Why are you equating Facebook with books?

<comment><USER36> To equate anyone who supports Facebook's actions in this case with the sort of people who support book burning, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How did BS conspiracy theories spread before the internet?

<comment><USER38> Pamphlets. Even graffiti.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion) (famous 1903 example)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Disclaimer: I had to lookup to see what QAnon was. Maybe there was more to the group other than conspiracy theories but theories are only that until supporting evidence is uncovered. How many scientific theories were just that until proven?

Also while theories political in nature are most likely believed by those they benefit the same but opposite holds true for those who would not like them to be true.

Allowing someone like Facebook to be an 'unbiased' 'arbiter of truth' is laughable.

<comment><USER40> Burn the heretics!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> How do we know that this isn't just metastasizing the problem?

</comment><comment><USER42> This is exactly what the deep state would do.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm following a conspiracy that QAnon is a conspiracy itself designed to take focus away from true conspiracies. Similar circles are all in agreement about Alex Jones as well being a deep state disinfo plant. Clearly according to most here, all conspiracies are false and the only source of truth is what they are told by the government and mainstream outlets. So, QAnon is an easy target for those looking to spend their time debunking conspiracies. The QAnon conspiracy, in that regard, is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

<comment><USER44> > a deep state disinfo plant

can you unroll this phrase a bit?

<comment><USER43> Someone from the deep state to distribute misinformation. A conspiracy theorist actor. A disinfo agent distracts the public away from the real conspiracies by clogging the airwaves with fake conspiracies. Q and Alex Jones are Trump's conspiracy media arm. If you are going to attack the actual media as fake, you need convincing counter-media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> How is this not going to become another game of whack-o-mole? You break one clubhouse they build 3 more, re: FatPeopleHate diaspora.

<comment><USER46> > You break one clubhouse they build 3 more, re: FatPeopleHate diaspora.

In the case of FPH, the new clubhouse was harder to find and didn't affect its neighbors as much.

[http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand- hate.pdf](http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf)

> More accounts than expected discontinued using the site; those that stayed > drastically decreasedtheir hate speech usage—by at least 80%. Though many > subreddits saw an influx of r/fatpeoplehate andr/CoonTown "migrants," those > subreddits saw no significant changes in hate speech usage. In other > words,other subreddits did not inherit the problem. We conclude by > reflecting on the apparent success of the ban,discussing implications for > online moderation, Reddit and internet communities more broadly.

<comment><USER45> I think conducting research like [https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3392847](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3392847) but specifically on groups that are banned for hate speech would be fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It is an upsetting development for several separate reasons.

1\. FB can do what it wants on its platform, but by cancelling this particular group it becomes a truth arbiter and/or censor, which is a scary proposition ( maybe not proposition, they have already been acting in this manner; QAnon is only significant, because of its size and overlap with R party ). I dislike censorship, but the fact that US population draws information from FB is scary to me.

2\. It further undermines freedom of speech and association. It only pushes those voices further into.. not fringe exactly, but it does seem to amplify their determination and allows them to claim they are being repressed by the powers that be.

3\. It implies that as humans we cannot survive sufficiently dangerous thoughts. This, to me, is horrifying. I believe we can. I believe the only way to allow humans to deal with the level of Qanon idiocy is to keep it in the light and not throw it into darkness where it only grows stronger. Just like with any disease we need to be able to build healthy immune system, our mind has to build healthy firewall to protect against idiotic ideas. It is not up to FB/gvmt. It is up to us and maybe parents. I would also accept critical thinking class as an answer.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's worth noting that there definitely is such a thing as the 'deep state', it's just that it's not some crazy thing about lizards and aliens, rather, it's jus the simple fact that anyone outside the established consensus will be perceived with hostility and the operating organs of state will systematically move to reject them.

In Canada, we have something call the 'Laurentian Consensus' \- which is basically Ottawa/Toronto/Montreal traditional, small-c conservative centre left, very establishment view of the world, propagated systematically by most of the bureaucracy, national banks, established systems, academia.

When you live in Ontario or Quebec, it doesn't seem obvious.

But when you live outside Ontario or Quebec, it becomes really quite obvious.

I do not believe a guy like Donald Trump has the best interest of the nation at heart, even if he thinks he does, and there's probably good reason the 'deep state' is rejecting his many appeals to authority. After all, the ultimate apparatus of the 'deep state' are literally things like 'the Justice System' etc..

But at least, theoretically, there is something to be said for it, and there are actual material concerns about individual expression vs. more statist and globalist forces.

The European Union bestows incredible power upon unelected leaders. Very few people vote in EU elections, their 'elected' MEPs do not really have a say in who the leadership will be. Not until the treaty of Lisbon were the elite even required to _consult_ elected MEPs! Now, it's just ceremonial. Ursula Von Der Leyen, one of the most powerful people in the world was _not on the ballot_ or even a known figure during the election. She was chosen _after the election_ in back room, completely non-transparent deals by the French PM, German Chancellor etc.. MEP's cannot enact legislation, they have no say in executive level conduct. In the last 10 years, two elected leaders (Greece, Italy) were effectively overthrown without real legal and certainly no democratic legitimacy. So this is an example of where I think most of the elite do in fact have 'mostly good intentions', but wherein the lack of democracy and transparency lends very credibility to populist concerns of 'deep state'.

The 'nature of power' in politics and business is very opaque, and a little bit hard to understand without exposure to it, and there actually is no 'one power', nobody really is in control, it's more about understanding the memes that interest the elite than anything. Which is not an easy to communicate idea. Hence - Lizards and Aliens.

Insane populists, with a few bad actors who don't mind knowingly spreading falsehoods, take advantage of this and make stuff up.

I don't think this is a new phenom, it's as old as time, it's just that the 'rumour mill' has metastasised.

If the proles ever were truly 'educated' as to how our financial and political system worked, here probably would be a _real_ revolution, maybe a 'good one'. But until then, it's a mess.

Finally - it's a serious issue. I have University educated friends asking me 'if I believe this stuff' trying to determine the legitimacy of it, without being able to write it off themselves.

We are entering a new ere wherein in the fiction of pop culture consciousness, nothing needs to be factual to have weight, and nobody is really in charge.

I really think that most libertarians and anarcho-socialists etc thought we'd have some kind of enlightened utopia, but really we get mostly Lizards and Aliens.

</comment><comment><USER48> Good, its now twitter's turn to remove hate filled Nazi's on Twitter.

<comment><USER40> It would be bad optics to remove all the "progressive" activists now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This feels too little too late. QAnon is a "thing" now, Facebook allowed it to grow big enough that they can probably find other platforms to grow even further.

<comment><USER50> Was Facebook their main platform? I thought it was YouTube.

<comment><USER51> QAnon posts to 4chan. It leaked out once, it can do so again - but now people are also looking for it.

<comment><USER52> qanon does not post to 4chan

<comment><USER51> A person calling himself "Q" posts to a board on the site where all members call themselves "Anonymous". That is where the name "QAnon" comes from, and it refers to his posts on there.

<comment><USER52> There are other chans besides 4chan. q does not post to 4chan

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> While I don't subscribe to the QAnon related conspiracies, I feel even more strongly that Facebook is a bigger threat to society as it stifles discussion and dissemination of apposing ideas if they are not compliant with their policy.

<comment><USER54> Meh. When the discussion and dissemination of ideas doesn't go beyond "meme level", nothing of value is really being lost. The platform doesn't really lend itself to deep discussion. It's sound bites but now every crackpot on the planet gets the same voice as experts who have dedicated their lives to a subject.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> It's hypocrisy that Facebook allows religious groups, but doesn't allow conspiracy theory groups. Conspiracy theory is a belief system. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant. You cannot allow religion and not allow conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories help people to make sense of the world, this is a fundamental human need.

I didn't see Facebook banning the Catholic church for its stance against contraception.

<comment><USER56> It wasn't banned because it was a conspiracy theory. It was banned because its members practiced hate speech, harassment, and bullying.

You should read the article.

<comment><USER57> Catholics and other religious groups do exactly that too, using 'god's wish' as their excuse.

<comment><USER56> Facebook was responding to _specific_ incidents from the _specific people_ in that group.

Just because _some_ members of a particular religious or social group do bad things, doesn't mean you should ban _all_ members of that group. If it did, all of Facebook would have to shut down.

And while that might not be a bad thing - it's not the point in question here.

<comment><USER57> How come they deleted a group, then? They should've only banned the offending members.

P.S. I fully agree with the removal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Will they say their removal was a conspiracy?

<comment><USER36> Who cares?

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> The article didn't try to explain the details beyond quoting Facebook's "policies" phrase in literally an incomplete sentence. Couldn't the BBC journalist interact with a Facebook spokesperson via phone or email to ask for more detail? Which policies, etc.

Conspiracy theorists and deep state lunatics - great, ok, we got rid of them. But is no one concerned that we're putting a lot of trust in Facebook or Twitter or other companies mentioned to correctly deem what's correct and incorrect information?

If you go back in time, there have been countless cases of journalists uncovering important cases but who were suppressed by the authorities and institutions. Yes, they come off as "conspiracy theories." Until, later we're very thankful for their bravery and sacrifices.

Just because QAnon peddles silly theories, doesn't mean that we should clap and smile and puts our thumbs up at this, or the removal of people like Alex Jones.

Let's put on our creative thinking caps and consider what happens if someone who you happen to like, or a more obscure or unpopular group who thinks differently is muted.

A basic principle of pluralism of ideas is, yeah, some ideas are just not agreeable. That's up to us to bite our tongues and tolerate it. If you think the conspiracy theories die along with QAnon Facebook Groups then you've been living under a rock.

<comment><USER59> Nice downvotes. As if downvoting is a way to vote on the issue as in a referendum.

Since it isn't, step out of the shadows and step up with a counter-argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Has anyone here ever even read a post by Q? Is it really a conspiracy that powerful pedophiles are protecting people like Jeffrey Epstein? Pretty established fact at this point</comment>