President Trump’s allies Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn have had their Twitter accounts disabled permanently, the same night the president himself was banned.
The social media platform issued a crackdown on Friday of users who had been spreading pro-QAnon content, and Powell and Flynn were wrapped up in it, according to Twitter.
“The accounts have been suspended in line with our policy on Coordinated Harmful Activity,” a Twitter spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm, and given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”
The platform also updated its approach to accounts dedicated to sharing QAnon content given the potential for harm. It’s unclear how many accounts were suspended as a result of the updated policy.
The QAnon conspiracy theory alleges, among other things, that a cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles operates a deep state bent on stopping Trump.
Both Powell, a former federal attorney who has gained infamy since November’s election with her repeated, unsubstantiated lawsuits alleging voter fraud behind President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, and Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, whom he pardoned for crimes he pleaded guilty to, and then tried to reverse, in connection to the Mueller investigation, have promoted QAnon content on the platform.
They both also promoted conspiracy theories about the election, with Flynn suggesting that the president, among other things, use martial law to send the military into battleground states to demand a second vote.
After a group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attack that left five dead, dozens wounded, federal property destroyed, and dozens of arrests on Wednesday, Twitter and other social media platforms suspended the president’s accounts for 12 hours after he tweeted videos in which he talked positively about the attackers even though he urged them to stop.
