Twitter Expands QAnon Restrictions To Include Candidates, Elected Officials

In July, Twitter cracked down on the conspiracy theory, banning more than 7,000 accounts and preventing QAnon content from appearing on sections of its site — but its enforcement policy was murky when it came to elected officials and candidates.

Forbes identified 15 candidates on Twitter — some with a huge following — that were verified on the platform and continued to promote the conspiracy theory with few restrictions.

In August, Twitter told Forbes it was considering a change to its QAnon enforcement policy to include elected officials.

On Thursday, a Twitter spokesperson told Forbes candidates and elected officials will no longer receive special treatment — accounts that promote QAnon “will no longer be actively recommended by Twitter” and verified users who engage in coordinated promotion of QAnon content (as QAnon followers often do) will have their tweets downranked.

The policy tweak Thursday was part of an announcement indicating the framework for how the policy would exist moving forward.

Twitter also announced that its July crackdown has helped to reduce impressions on QAnon content by more than 50%.