After too long letting the unfounded, unhinged conspiracy theory QAnon run pretty unfettered on its platform, Facebook this week took steps to limit its impact. While it isn’t banning all QAnon content outright, Facebook did ban around 900 related pages and groups and 1,500 ads. It mainly said it would remove any QAnon groups that mentioned knowledge violence, while downranking other QAnon content on both Facebook and News Feed, in addition to any posts relating to militias or anarchists. The company will also no longer characteristic those groups as thoughts.
Which is also a reminder that until this week, Facebook was actively funneling users to a conspiracy theory whose important tenet is that the area is run by a cabal of movie star pedophiles whom only Donald Trump can bring to justice. Speaking of spy stuff!There are few agencies as debatable in cybersecurity as NSO Group, whose spyware has been tied to hacks of dissidents and other members of “civil society” which are commonly intended to be off limits. NSO Group has repeatedly denied those allegations. In an interview with MIT Technology Review, NSO Group founder Shalev Hulio made the counterintuitive case that his industry must function less in the shadows. The media offensive comes as the company faces an ongoing lawsuit introduced by Facebook owned WhatsApp, which alleges that NSO Group malware was used to target 1,400 of its users.