Social media platform Facebook has announced a ban on all pages, groups and Instagram accounts linked to QAnon as the company cracks down on the far-right conspiracy theory movement.
A previous ban on QAnon in September only applied to Facebook groups and pages that explicitly called for violence but now that’s been expanded.
In Finland the main QAnon Suomi Facebook page, with thousands of followers, had rebranded as Kuu Suomi, presumable to try and beat the algorithms however it was shut down on Tuesday.
Activists in Finland who track far-right organisations note that there are Finnish QAnon backup sites moving out of Facebook’s reach to platforms such as Telegram instant messenger or the Russian VK social media channel instead.
A simple search finds other Finnish pages on Facebook are still posting QAnon-style content to their thousands of followers.
One of these pages, spotted by Silakkaliike’s Johannes Koski, has almost 6,000 members and is called ‘Me Kansa - Kansanliike‘ - or the Peoples’ Movement. It claims to want to restore an independent political and judicial system in Finland that “does not follow the orders of the international elite.”
The page features posts with misleading information about coronavirus; conspiracy theories about Donald Trump being targeted for Covid-19 assassination; shares dangerous and unfounded QAnon messaging about American politicians involved in an imaginary “Pizzagate” scandal involving Hilary Clinton and paedophiles; has numerous anti-EU and anti-globalisation posts; as well as posts about philanthropist George Soros - a frequent target of anti-Semitic vitriol - and other content sharing Finns Party information.
One of the group’s moderators Hanna Davidsson wrote a post on Wednesday afternoon saying that Me Kansa was being deliberately portrayed in a bad light, and that organisers would transition it from being an open public group to a private group instead.
Davidsson’s Facebook profile picture has a large Q and a popular QAnon hashtag next to her photograph. It is not clear if Hanna Davidsson is a real person, however another account Jukka Davidsson frequently posts some of the most conspiratorial messages to the same group.
In September, Finns Party MPs appeared at a rally outside parliament where QAnon signs and messaging were prominently displayed. QAnon started in the USA with a mix of extreme right-wing conspiracy theory that claimed that a shadowy cabal of Satan-worshiping international paedophiles was plotting against Donald Trump.
Their cryptic WWG1WGA acronym – it means ‘Where We Go One We Go All’ – was on display outside parliament in September and is often used by QAnon activists who also think Hilary Clinton is part of this cabal that Trump was elected to destroy.
