1/ Facebook announced an updated policy on "movements and organizations tied to violence". In its announcement they state "we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content." https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/addressing-movements-and-organizations-tied-to-violence/

2/ In the initial August 19 announcement, Facebook sought to disrupt the ability of QAnon to operate and organize itself on Facebook and Instagram. This was followed by a September 30 announcement thatFacebook would be down-ranking QAnon content

3/ Facebook's initial actions against QAnon were not enough to disrupt the movement, especially as it continued to evolve and found its way into other communities, as well as tested ways to circumvent the initial Facebook sanctions.

4/ Though it is easy to be critical of Facebook taking time to act against QAnon, we must give them credit for trying something other than the ban hammer right off the bat (I'm not a fan of simply banning all content as a solution).

5/ It is important to know that July/August QAnon was a different movement that October QAnon. Yes that may be weird to say, but I have yet to see a movement evovle as fast as QAnon or radicalize as fast as QAnon.

6/ Also of note the socio-political environment is much different in October than it was in July/August; and I am sure this has come into play when Facebook was deciding to ban QAnon and other "militarized social movements"

7/ Already I had seen trends in more violent content on Facebook in the past months especially with the circulation of memes and videos promoting VRA (vehicle ramming attacks) with the slogan "all lives splatter" or "BL platter" we don't care about your protests.

8/ The behavioral escalation in the QAnon communities over the past 6 weeks have probably played into the decision taken by Facebook.

9/ Now there have been some Questions about labeling QAnon as a "Militarized Social Movement", this is a different policy than their "dangerous organization" label. Dangerous org label = Facebook will ban all presence plus praise, support, & representation by others of the org

10/ The "Militarized Social Movement" means that if an account, page, or groups "represents" QAnon these will be taken down. This will exclude at the moment QAnon light/wellness/savethechildren accounts that label themselves as such and not QAnon

11/ This is not the final position of Facebook, as I am certain they will be monitoring for ban evasions and shift in tactics and labeling by QAnon to see if they can circumvent the actions taken by Facebook

12/ It's important to also note that the "Militarized Social Movement" label is one applied by Facebook to fit its own internal policies and terms of service. This however does not determine if QAnon is an organization, movement or religion (though I have my own opinions on that)

13/ Facebook, unlike Twitter, had taken action against QAnon in a single swoop a few hours before their announcement at 5pm EST. here is the damage so far:
Groups yesterday 186 today 18
Pages yesterday 253 today 96
IG accounts yesterday 269 today 141

14/ This will do permanent damage to the presence of QAnon on Facebook, in my opinion, in the long run. Short term, what we will see are pages and groups poping back up and trying to game the Facebook algorithm to see what will stick.

15/ But with little presence on Facebook to quickly amplify new pages and groups and the changes to the search algorithm this will not be as effective as it was in the past.

16/ Already, there are talks on Telegram, Parler and Gab, of using Facebook to talk about "news" and "truth" or "facts" and to talk Q on alternative platforms. However, this may be a solution to those already in the movement, it will slow down the radicalization pipeline.

17/ This will, however, push those already convinced by QAnon, onto platforms where they will interact with more extreme content they may not have found on Facebook, and this will lead some of these further down the radicalization path.

18/ This will accelerate the process for some that may have already been on this path. However, it may cut off or turn off neophytes that are not as convinced. What this will also do is cut off influencers from a large part of their communities.

19/ Alternative social media platforms (Gab/Parler/MeWe), or communication platforms (Telegram) are not as effective for promoting content or merchandise, which will impact grifters who were profiting from QAnon.

20/ Though Facebook has taken this alrge step, there will be much work that remains for them to maintain this and follow through to make sure QAnon doesn't reappear on the platform. There is also the challenge of QAnon light/Pastel/QAnon/Save the Children QAnon.

21/ Also, a bigger issue is YouTube has yet to take action against QAnon. YouTube Videos are central to QAnon as video is the most used medium to circulate QAnon content across digital ecosystems.

22/ As long as QAnon content still has a home on YouTube, we will continue to see their content on all social media platforms, and there is not much Facebook can do about that. This will require a multi-platform effort.

23/ This also means even though Facebook took this monumental step this will not necessarily slow down the flow of new members into QAnon who can be pilled by QAnon believers who share QAnon videos across various platforms.

24/ Additionally, it will be difficult to curb the various conspiracy theories that have been adopted and co-opted by QAnon or that may be QAnon adjacent. This will still act as radicalization vectors into QAnon.

25/ Technology and platforms provide a vector for extremist movements like QAnon; however at its root it is a human issue, and the current socio-political environment around the globe is fertile for the continued existence and growth of QAnon

26/ This is a step int he right direction; however, this is not the end game and there is much work ahead for those of us working in this space.

27/ Already QAnon influencers are stating that Q had warned about this when he told everyone to go dark and remove any mention of Q/QAnon from their social feeds. They are taking the Facebook sactions as a Q-proof

28/ Therefore, for those already embedded in the QAnon movement, these actions simply confirm their ideological belief that they are in an information war against the deep state, and this is simply the latest attack by the deep state against them.

29/ For some this will mean a doubling down of their efforts. For others, this is part of wider efforts to manipulate the outcome of the election by silencing support for POTUS and thus further rigging the election.

30/ Some QAnon followers, are linking this to the POTUS COVID diagnostic and see the Facebook censorship as part of the "10 days of darkness, which is part of the apocalyptic tribulations they must go through ahead of the election and their promised golden age.

31/ For the Qvangelicals, they perceive this as a part of the spiritual warfare that is currently on going ahead of the election and that Satan is fighting along side the democrats to make sure that God and his chosen one Trump will not be elected

32/ For this segment of the QAnon community, it is part of a wider eschatological battle. The information war is part of the salvific mandate of Christians in the USA, who have been chosen by God to defeat the Luciferian deep state.

33/ The more political side of QAnon are seeing this as a continued infringement on freedom of expression by Facebook and that QAnon is not a violent movement (I beg to differ and I believe I have demonstrated it is a violent movement.)

34/ This segment echoes existing talking points on the political right and should not surprise any observers or researchers in this space. Nevertheless, it will reinforce the ideological beliefs of the segment of the community.

35/ Of note, the international QAnon communities have been heavily affected by this. Facebook has managed to take down multilingual QAnon content, which is not an easy feat considering i had found QAnon communities in 75 countries.

36/ I'll leave this at thirty-six tweets for now but happy to answer questions anyone may have.