TikTok QAnon Ban Issues: 'Buggy' Implementation

TikTok has been actively addressing content linked to QAnon, mirroring similar efforts undertaken by other prominent social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube, all aimed at limiting the dissemination of this unsupported conspiracy theory on their services.

A recent NPR report highlighted that TikTok had already implemented a quiet ban on several hashtags connected to the QAnon conspiracy, and stated its commitment to removing accounts that actively promote QAnon-related content.

TikTok clarified that these policies were not newly established, explaining that they were actually enacted earlier in the year. Initially, the platform concentrated on diminishing the visibility of such content as a first step, blocking search results while simultaneously investigating, with the assistance of partners, the ways in which this content was appearing on its platform. TikTok indicated that this process was documented in multiple news reports in July. Subsequently, in August, TikTok instituted a policy to remove content and suspend accounts.

However, a report released this month by Media Matters revealed that TikTok was still hosting at least 14 hashtags affiliated with QAnon, accumulating a total of over 488 million views. This occurred because the platform had not yet addressed how QAnon adherents were bypassing its community guidelines through the use of variations and misspellings.

Following the publication of Media Matters’ report, TikTok removed 11 of the 14 hashtags that were referenced, as noted in an update to the report.

Currently, searches for a number of hashtags associated with QAnon—such as #QAnon, #TheStormIsComing, #Trump2Q2Q, and others—yield no results within TikTok’s search engine. These hashtags do not appear in the “Top” search results, nor under “Videos” or “Hashtags.”

Rather than presenting users with an empty search page, TikTok now displays a message explaining that certain phrases may be linked to behavior or content that violates its Community Guidelines, and provides a link to those guidelines.

Media Matters acknowledged the changes in a statement to NPR, describing TikTok’s actions as “good and significant,” albeit “long overdue.”

While TikTok’s ban successfully addressed many of the primary search results and tags linked to the conspiracy, it was discovered that other terms, such as pizzagate and WWG1WGA, were being overlooked. Testing conducted this afternoon demonstrated that these terms, along with others, continued to return a substantial amount of content.

TikTok attributed this to a potential “bug.”

TikTok was contacted today to inquire why searches for terms like “pizzagate” and “WWG1WGA”—popular terms within the QAnon community—were still producing search results, despite the hashtags being banned.

For instance, a search for “pizzagate” generated a lengthy list of videos, although direct access to the hashtag was unavailable. This contrasted with the behavior observed with other banned hashtags (like #QAnon) during the tests.

The videos that appeared discussed the Pizzagate conspiracy—a baseless theory that ultimately incited real-world violence when a gunman opened fire in a DC pizza restaurant, believing he was rescuing children.

While some videos simply discussed or debunked the theory, many actively promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy, asserting its validity or claiming to offer “proof.”

Above: Video recorded Oct. 19, 2020, 3:47 PM ET/12:47 PM PT

Other hashtags associated with QAnon were also not fully banned, including WWG1WGA, WGA, ThesePeopleAreSick, cannibalclub, hollyweird, and numerous others frequently used to spread QAnon conspiracies.

Searches for these terms yielded extensive lists of QAnon-related videos.

This information was documented with photographs and videos before being presented to TikTok, along with a request for clarification regarding why these terms were exempted from the ban, specifically pizzagate and WWG1WGA.

TikTok provided details regarding the timeline of its policy changes and the following statement:

TikTok also stated that the search term blocking was likely due to a bug, and that it was now functioning correctly.

Upon receiving TikTok’s confirmation, the terms in question were found to be blocked, but other terms remained unblocked, including some previously mentioned, as well as obscure terms known primarily to dedicated conspiracy theorists, such as adrenochromereptilians.

Media Matters was asked whether it could still commend TikTok’s efforts to ban QAnon content, given the apparent loophole in the ban at the time.

“TikTok has of course taken steps but not fully resolved the problem, but as we’ve noted, the true test of any of these policies—like we’ve said of other platform’s measures—is in how and if they enforce them,” the organization responded.

Even if the banned content was temporarily visible due to a “bug,” it was observed that many of the users who posted the content had not been banned from TikTok.

While a search for their username now yields no results due to the corrected ban, their profile pages remain accessible via their direct URL on the web.

This was tested on numerous profiles of users who had published QAnon content or used banned terms in their videos’ hashtags and descriptions. (Several examples are shown below.)

This indicates that while TikTok reduced the discoverability of these users within the app, their accounts can still be located if their username is known, and users can still follow them once on their profile page.

These instances of “bugs” or oversights underscore the challenges inherent in enforcing content bans across large social media platforms.

Effective enforcement requires significant investment in both human moderation and automated systems, as well as tools to prevent banned users from creating new accounts, in order to keep pace with the spread of disinformation at the scale of social media.