Press Release

ADL Statement on Facebook’s Decision to Finally Ban QAnon Content From Platform

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May 04, 2020 Updated: October 28, 2022

New York, October 6, 2020 … ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) CEO and National Director Jonathan A. Greenblatt issued the following statement regarding Facebook’s decision to ban QAnon content from its platform:

Facebook’s decision to ban QAnon from all its platforms is a much needed, if belated, step to purge dangerous conspiracy theories from the platform. QAnon is an extremist movement that fuels antisemitism and promotes misinformation and hate in an effort to undermine our democratic process. This is a step we have been asking Facebook’s top executives to take for months as part of Stop Hate for Profit. We hope that this is a sincere effort to purge hate and antisemitism from their platform, and not another knee-jerk response to pressure from members of Congress and the public.

Now that they have announced that they will treat the QAnon ideology like the very real threat that it is, we hope that they will follow up with some modicum of evidence showing how the ban is being enforced and whether it is fully effective. As we’ve seen recently with the speed at which misinformation has spread around the president’s contraction of coronavirus, QAnon presents a serious threat to our democracy, and we are still concerned that the people behind these groups will use subterfuge in an effort to find a workaround to continue spreading disinformation.