TikTok decides it's had enough of QAnon

When a deranged conspiracy theory with potential for real-world harm rears its head on your viral-video platform, it’s time to take action. Or if you’re TikTok, sorta kinda take a baby step towards curbing its influence.

Late Friday TikTok confirmed to Rolling Stone that it would stop returning search results for QAnon-related words and phrases.

Notably, TikTok is still allowing hashtags associated with the “deep state”-obsessed fiction on its platform. The phrases aren’t banned, and neither is conspiracy content, but they just won’t be searchable.

We achieved to TikTok both to affirm the new coverage and to ascertain if it went into effect, but obtained no immediate response.

But, based on Rolling Stone, a TikTok spokesperson said the movement was driven from the simple fact that QAnon content entails disinformation, which can be prohibited on the stage.

Based on Digital Trends, the #QAnon had over 83 million viewpoints around TikTok up from 3 million in December. TikTok has also been home to a revival of this Pizzagate conspiracy concept one of its youthful users.

“Content that’s meant to deceive or mislead our community members interrupts our trust-based community,” reads TikTok’s guidelines in part. “we don’t let such content on the platform. Including activities such as spamming, impersonation, and disinformation campaigns.”

As of late Friday afternoon, hunts for #qanon, #qanontruth, #fallcabal, and #outofshadows show zero consequences on the stage.

The exact same can be stated for #Pizzagate. Meanwhile, the #wwg1wga (an abbreviation of this QAnon catchphrase”Where we go , we go all”) continued to yield effects.

This isn’t the first time TikTok has rolled out some kind of a material prohibit. Since the Guardian reported in 2019, the program — possessed by Chinese firm Byte Dance — has previously censored videos”that cite Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the prohibited spiritual group Falun Gong” in addition to “pro-LGBT articles” in some locations. At the U.S., an individual can nevertheless view LGBTQ content.

TikTok’s Friday conclusion follows soon on the heels of a similar, albeit more powerful, movement by Twitter. On Tuesday, the San Francisco-based social networking firm announced it’d go so far as to block specific”URLs connected with QAnon from being shared on Twitter.”

We will permanently suspend accounts Tweeting about these topics that we know are engaged in violations of our multi-account policy, coordinating abuse around individual victims, or are attempting to evade a previous suspension — something we’ve seen more of in recent weeks.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) July 22, 2020

In reaction, some QAnon adherents on Twitter shared plans to bypass the organization’s activities using the amount 17 as a stand-in for the letter Q — a movement which could repeat itself in some kind on TikTok.