Facebook Botches Launch of Redirect Initiative for QAnon Occurred on 21 Oct 2020

Facebook announced the launch of the Redirect Initiative for QAnon which would be a “dangerous content” warning label placed on the search results page for any search terms related to QAnon in addition to offering links to the Global Network on Extremism and Technology to learn about how bad QAnon is:

Starting today, when someone searches for terms related to QAnon on Facebook and Instagram, we will redirect them to credible resources from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), the academic research network of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. This is the latest expansion of our Redirect Initiative to help combat violent extremism and will direct people to resources that can help inform them of the realities of QAnon and its ties to violence and real world harm.

Around this same time, users started noticing the “dangerous content” QAnon warning when they searched for things that had nothing to do with QAnon. This happened for many different types of search terms ranging from independent news outlets such as the OffGuardian…

#Facebook is now telling people who search for us that we “may be associated” with #QAnon.

We are not, in any way, associated with QAnon and never have been.

Is anyone else seeing this warning?

– OffGuardian (@OffGuardian0) 22 Oct 2020

…all the way to, as The Federalist reported, a Christian worship group:

[Sean Feucht, founder of the group Let Us Worship] said they reported the misleading label, and it has since been taken down, but Facebook never issued an explanation, an apology, or an answer on what they plan to do to prevent it from happening in the future.

After gaining enough negative attention, Facebook paused this new feature in order to investigate what was going wrong, leaving us totally unprotected against voluntarily searching for things ourselves without Facebook’s brainwashing. Well what do you know, it turned out to just be a little glitch! Facebook patched that bad boy right up so we could all be safe and protected once again:

We fixed the glitch so that when someone searches for terms related to QAnon on Facebook and Instagram, we will redirect them to credible resources from the Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET). This is our latest step to keep our community safe.

– Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) 22 Oct 2020