Vimeo removes some QAnon conspiracy theory videos after YouTube crackdown – Insider

• Video-sharing platform Vimeo said it does not allow QAnon content and has removed a popular video recruitment video for the conspiracy theory that was identified in a Media Matters for America report.
• A Vimeo spokesperson said QAnon content violates the platform’s rules against “conspiracy theory-related content where the underlying conspiracy theory spreads, among other things, hate speech, large scale defamation, false or misleading vaccination or health-safety content.” 
• More than a dozen tech companies have fully banned or taken some action on QAnon. 
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As more than a dozen tech companies, including Facebook and YouTube, announce efforts to slow the spread of the QAnon conspiracy theory, the baseless far-right theory continues to appear in various online spaces that claim to prohibit it. 

Vimeo, the video-sharing platform, said it does not allow QAnon content. But the progressive nonprofit Media Matters for America (MMFA), which tracks extremism and conservative media, reported on Friday that Vimeo was one of the platforms QAnon believers continued to use in the wake of YouTube’s recent purge.

One Facebook user in a private group dedicated to QAnon told others to use Vimeo in YouTube’s absence from the QAnon world, MMFA reported. 

QAnon is an unfounded conspiracy theory alleging that President Donald Trump is fighting a deep-state cabal of human traffickers. It has been linked to 11 alleged crimes and the FBI has warned of its potential as a domestic terrorism threat. 

MMFA found that on Friday, a video series called “Fall of the Cabal,” a popular recruitment tool for QAnon that spreads misinformation about former President Barack Obama and the Clintons, remained on Vimeo, though it had been removed by YouTube.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the video is not available on Vimeo. A spokesperson for the company told Insider that QAnon content is not allowed on the platform, citing guidelines that prohibit “conspiracy theory-related content where the underlying conspiracy theory spreads, among other things, hate speech, large scale defamation, false or misleading vaccination or health-safety content.” 

Vimeo’s user guidelines, last updated publically on October 9, reference QAnon as an example of such prohibited conspiracy-theory content. But searches for “QAnon” and “WWG1WGA,” shorthand for the movement’s slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” yield several videos that include misinformation and propagate the unfounded conspiracy theory, though most of the videos have minimal reach.

The MMFA report also identified four QAnon-related podcasts on Spotify, which the platform took down when Insider reached out for comment. 

It was not immediately clear when Vimeo began to include QAnon as part of its prohibited content, but other platforms have been racing to announce bans on the movement.

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