The personal account of the President of the United States was deleted overnight, as well as those of the main figures of this conspiracy movement. Twitter justifies its decision by fear of “new armed demonstrations” in the United States.
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Donald Trump is not the only one to have seen his personal Twitter account suspended on Friday January 8: several hundred profiles linked to the conspiratorial movement Qanon were also closed in the same movement.
The theory that Qanon propagates postulates that Donald Trump is leading a secret war against a pedophile cabal that would secretly control the US government, if not the world. When the Capitol was invaded on Wednesday, January 6, many pro-Trump demonstrators wore the symbols linked to this movement, which spread widely in the United States in 2020 thanks to confinement, but also to the electoral context.
On January 8, almost all of the movement’s influential figures lost their account, starting with retired Lieutenant-General Michael Flynn, a figure admired by Qanon. The account of Ron Watkins, a former administrator of the 8kun unmoderated board, and suspected of being one of the people behind the figure of “Q”, has also been deleted. Just like those of very well-followed conspiratorial “influencers”, including “Praying Medic” or, for French speakers, that of the Quebec conspiratorialist Alexis Cossette-Trudel.
Lawyer Sydney Powell, who since the defeat of Donald Trump has led a vast campaign of disinformation claiming that a massive voting machine fraud took place during the election, also saw his account deleted. On the same day, Dominion Company, one of the largest distributors of voting machines in the United States, announced that it was filing a defamation suit against Ms. Powell – the company claims more billion dollars in damages.
An unprecedented but belated wave of deletions
Twitter did not explain in detail the reasons for this series of account closures related to QAnon. But in the statement posted explaining why Donald Trump’s account was finally suspended, Twitter notably mentions a> the “plans for new armed demonstrations that have already started to proliferate on Twitter and elsewhere, including plans for a new attack on the Capitol on January 17”.
This is not the first time that Twitter proceeds to a massive deletion of accounts linked to Qanon – in July, the social network had closed some 7,000 accounts, but these closures had largely spared the most popular figures of the movement. The January 8 series of deletions is generally considered late by movement specialists. “Twitter finally decided to use the ax rather than the scalpel”, writes Qanon journalist Travis View .
Some of the activists whose accounts have been censored have taken refuge on the unmoderated, pro-Trump social network Parler, which appears to be experiencing some disruption in the face of an influx of users and messages. Lawyer Sydney Powell denounces “fascist” censorship and calls on Donald Trump to declare a state of emergency.
The Talk app was removed on January 8 from Google’s app store, and Apple threatens to do the same if the social network does not provide proof, within twenty-four hours, that it is in position to moderate the calls for violence, many on this platform.