- Date
- 2018-09-12
- Trigger
- Months of violent threats, harassment, and posting of personal information across QAnon conspiracy subreddits, headlined by r/greatawakening, which had grown past 70,000 subscribers.
- Policy change
- No new rule; Reddit enforced its existing content policy against inciting violence, disseminating personal information, and harassment, removing the main QAnon hub and roughly 17 related communities.
- Communities removed
- ~18 communities
What happened
On September 12, 2018, Reddit banned r/greatawakening, the largest gathering place for the QAnon conspiracy theory, along with a backup community and roughly 17 other QAnon-focused subreddits. Reddit cited repeated violations of its content policy, specifically content that incited violence, disseminated personal information, or harassed users. r/greatawakening had amassed more than 70,000 subscribers and was averaging thousands of comments a day before removal. The action followed Reddit's earlier March 2018 removal of the original QAnon subreddit, r/CBTS_Stream, for similar reasons. The wave was widely covered as a significant step in deplatforming a conspiracy movement that had spread from fringe boards toward the mainstream.