Reddit Bans r/GreatAwakening and the QAnon Subreddits (September 2018)
September 2018
On September 12, 2018 Reddit banned r/GreatAwakening — the largest QAnon hub — and roughly 18 related subreddits for inciting violence, harassment, and doxxing.
What happened
r/GreatAwakening was the central and largest hub for the QAnon conspiracy theory on Reddit — the false claim that Donald Trump was secretly waging war against a 'global pedophile ring' involving Democratic figures and celebrities. At the time of the ban it was reported at roughly 54,000 to 71,000 subscribers and many thousands of comments per day.
On September 12, 2018 Reddit banned the community for repeated content-policy violations, specifically the rules against inciting violence, harassment, and disseminating personal information. The action extended to a backup board and to roughly 18 other QAnon-themed subreddits including r/BiblicalQ, r/Quincels, r/QProofs, and r/thestorm. The behavior reportedly continued even after the community's own moderators urged users to stop posting violent threats.
The September sweep followed an escalating pattern: Reddit had already shut r/CBTS_Stream in March 2018 for incitement of violence and posting private information. Reddit characterized the September action as conduct-based rather than viewpoint-based, citing on-platform violent threats, harassment campaigns, and doxxing by users.
Impact
Removed the dominant mainstreaming engine for QAnon on a major platform, dispersing the movement to fringe sites; it became an early case study in how conspiracy communities migrate and harden after deplatforming.