Facebook no longer allows users to see aggregated results for #SavetheChildren, a hashtag commonly used by QAnon supporters.
Facebook began “limiting the distribution” of the hashtag on Friday, spokeswoman Emily Cain told the Washington Examiner. Posts that include the hashtag will not be promoted on users’ news feeds.
“Last week, we stepped up how we enforce our rules against QAnon on pages, events, and groups,” Cain said. “On Friday we began limiting the distribution of the ‘save our children’ hashtag given we’ve found that content tied to it is now associated with QAnon. When people search for it, they will now see the credible child safety resources.”
Instead of seeing a list of posts that use the hashtag, users who click on a #SaveTheChildren hashtag will be redirected to a list of “credible child safety resources,” Cain said.
The Save the Children Fund is a real organization. It was founded in London in 1919 and “champion[s] the rights and interests of children worldwide,” through increased educational opportunities and healthcare protecting children against violence. The organization has more than 25,000 staff across the globe.
Users who search for the hashtag will be asked if they’re looking for the humanitarian organization and will be redirected to the fund’s website.
However, the #SavetheChildren hashtag often has little to do with the humanitarian organization. A number of reports have demonstrated how QAnon users have co-opted the hashtag to continue spreading across social media platforms.
One researcher, Marc-Andre Argentino, found that QAnon groups that presented themselves as anti-trafficking pages increased their membership by more than 3,000%, according to the New York Times.
6/ It is very likely that the “save the/our children” narratives are not going to be sustained long term without some injection of content to feed the communities here. It is hard to determine if this has anything to do with measures put in place by Facebook at this time.
— Marc-André Argentino (@_MAArgentino) September 23, 2020
QAnon is a right-wing conspiracy group that promotes the belief, among other things, that a group of powerful politicians is involved in a child sex-trafficking ring and that a deep state exists to thwart President Trump. Users who shared the hashtag often had no idea it was connected to the conspiracy theory, Vox reported, but sharing the hashtag can lead users to fall down a rabbit hole of QAnon misinformation.
In August, Save the Children addressed the use of the hashtag and distanced itself from its recent surge among QAnon adherents.
“Our name in hashtag form has been experiencing unusually high volumes and causing confusion among our supporters and the general public,” the organization wrote. “In the United States, Save the Children is the sole owner of the registered trademark “Save the Children.” While people may choose to use our organization’s name as a hashtag to make their point on different issues, we are not affiliated or associated with any of these campaigns.
Facebook announced on Aug. 19 it was cracking down on pages and accounts from “offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon.” As a result, 800 groups, 100 pages, and 1,500 ads connected with QAnon were removed.
Before Facebook’s crackdown, an internal investigation found thousands of QAnon-related groups and pages with millions of followers, according to NBC News.
Since then, Facebook has issued a series of updates on the policy, including removing accounts and pages related to QAnon even if they contain no threats of violence, which was the initial reason for content being removed. The initiative was supposed to take these efforts one step further on Wednesday, redirecting people who search for QAnon-related content to verified information from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology.
Facebook said that it will continue to identify ways in which QAnon supporters attempt to evade its detection.
