QAnon Facebook groups have more than 3 million combined followers, investigation reveals

(Image credit: DENIS CHARLET/AFP via Getty Images)

last updated 11 August 2020

An internal Facebook investigation has revealed, for the first time, just how large the QAnon conspiracy theory community is on the platform, documents reviewed by NBC News show.

Facebook has been looking into supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims President Trump is leading a secret war to thwart political, business, and Hollywood elites who worship Satan and are involved in sex abuse. As it turns out, there are thousands of QAnon communities on Facebook plus groups of pages, many of which are private (hence the previous lack of clarity about its expanse), that have a combined 3 million followers. The top 10 groups identified in the investigation alone have collectively accrued more than 1 million followers, although it's unclear how much crossover there is between them.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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