In the aftermath of the US Capitol storming last week, Facebook is now removing content with 'Stop The Steal' under its coordinating harm policy from Facebook and Instagram. Stop the Steal is a conservative movement that promotes the false claim that widespread electoral fraud was behind US President Donald Trump losing the election. Meanwhile, Twitter has permanently suspended 70,000 accounts primarily dedicated to QAnon content since Friday afternoon. QAnon is a complex, but wildly popular conspiracy theory among the conservative American public that spreads misinformation around a “deep state” conspiracy against President Donald Trump, and promotes ideas that Satan-worshipping pedophiles secretly run the world. Twitter said many of the individuals affected ran multiple QAnon accounts, hence resulting in higher number of accounts removed. The violence and storming of the US Capitol was promoted online on social media forums, where groups and individuals were known to be mobilising to gather in large numbers on January 6, when the electoral college vote count was scheduled for. Parler, Gab, Telegram and other alternative forums were also used to plan to storm the Capitol. Following the storming, Facebook and Twitter permanently suspended Donald Trump while Reddit booted pro-Trump subreddits. Apple and Google booted Parler from their app stores, while Amazon pulled the plug on the social media app's cloud hosting service. Facebook said it was prompted by "continued attempts to organize events" against Joe Biden's victory that can lead to violence, and the use of "stop the steal" during the storming of the US…
