LONDON (AP) — Twitter says it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts associated with the far right QAnon conspiracy theory following last week’s U.S. Capitol riot.
The social media company said Tuesday that given the events last week in Washington, D.C., it was taking action against online behavior “that has the potential to lead to offline harm.”
The company says in a blog post that in many cases, a single individual operated numerous accounts, driving up the total number of affected accounts.
It says the accounts were engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of the conspiracy theory across the service.
Twitter says the suspension of these accounts may have led to a decrease in followers for some.
“Our updated enforcement on QAnon content on Twitter, along with routine spam challenges, has resulted in changes in follower count for some people’s Twitter accounts,” wrote Twitter. “In some cases, these actions may have resulted in follower count changes in the thousands.”
The suspension of these accounts comes days after the site permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Trump is accused of inciting the violent riot on the U.S. Capitol, which resulted in at least five deaths and interrupted Congress’ certification of the Electoral College victory of President-elect Joe Biden. The Capitol was placed on lockdown until law enforcement was able to secure it.