Wednesday, September 02, 2020


Some Of The Biggest QAnon Conspiracy Accounts On Instagram Are Claiming They've Been Suspended

Accounts like @little.miss.patriot, who gained hundreds of thousands of followers by posting right-wing conspiracy theories on Instagram, are saying they have been suspended.



Stephanie McNeal BuzzFeed News Reporter
Last updated on September 1, 2020










Instagram

Some of the most popular pro-QAnon accounts on Instagram, which have been spreading right-wing conspiracy theories with increasing frequency over the summer, claimed on Tuesday that they have been suspended from the platform.

The account holder behind @little.miss.patriot, who gained nearly 300,000 followers in just a few months by posting pastel-colored infographics of various debunked claims about President Donald Trump and Democrats, posted on their backup account that their main Instagram handle had been suspended without warning

"I have no idea how long my page is disabled for, it will not let me log in, I have no information," the anonymous account holder wrote on their backup page, little.miss.patriot.2.






The account holder behind @qthewakeup also announced that they can no longer access their main page, writing on their backup page: "Can't stop, won't stop."


Instagram

As did the person behind @greatawkening3, who claimed to have 117,000 followers when they were suspended.


Instagram

Several smaller conspiracy theory pages, while they remain active, have also had their posts flagged as "false information" by Instagram's fact-checkers.


Instagram

And right-wing journalist Liz Crokin posted that her Instagram was "under attack," though she didn't clarify what she meant.


Instagram

However, several accounts that promote QAnon — the collective delusion about Trump fighting a child sex trafficking ring led by liberal global elites — remain active on the platform, without any apparent censorship of their content. In addition, many lifestyle bloggers who have pivoted to conspiracy theory content, such as @roseuncharted and @luvbec, have thus far faced no apparent consequences for sharing the misinformation.



Instagram

It's unclear whether the accounts have been temporarily suspended, if there is a glitch, or if they have been permanently banned. Instagram did not immediately return a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.

Last month, Facebook announced it was cracking down on misinformation on its platforms, including Instagram, removing or restricting hundreds of groups, accounts, and hashtags related to right-wing conspiracy theories.

"We have seen growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior," Facebook said in a statement to the New York Times.

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