YouTube bans QAnon and other conspiracy content 'used to justify real-world violence'

(Image credit: GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

published 15 October 2020

YouTube is cracking down on QAnon and other conspiracy theory content spreading wildly on its site.

Following the lead of Facebook, YouTube on Thursday announced its biggest step yet against "conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence." This includes "content that threatens or harasses someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies, such as QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories," YouTube explicitly said.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Before Thursday, YouTube said it had "removed tens of thousands of QAnon-videos and terminated hundreds of channels under our existing policies." It also modified its recommendation algorithm, leading "the number of views that come from non-subscribed recommendations to prominent Q-related channels [to drop] by over 80 percent since January 2019." But "there's even more we can do to address certain conspiracy theories," YouTube said, leading to Thursday's enhanced policy and a promise to "ramp up" conspiracy theory moderation "in the weeks to come."

Explore More

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox