Facebook has stepped up its fight against fake content and misinformation in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. However, in the company’s April “Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior” report, there was a surprising new target of the company’s crackdown: accounts peddling QAnon conspiracy theories.

For the uninitiated, the QAnon conspiracy is almost impossibly complicated and difficult to understand. But the gist is that President Trump is aligned against a “deep state” conspiracy of elites responsible for a slew of terrible acts. And in its latest report, Facebook said that it took down five pages, 20 accounts and six groups linked to the conspiracy network. This is a notable move for the company, which has previously hesitated to enter the fray regulating any kind of political (or even politics-adjacent) content.

“We’re constantly working to find and stop coordinated campaigns that seek to manipulate public debate across our apps,” Facebook said in a blog post announcing the takedowns. “We are making progress rooting out this abuse, but as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing effort.”

Still, despite the company’s strong actions here, there are plenty of active QAnon accounts on the platform. But maybe this move signals that Facebook will be more willing in the future to get its hands dirty removing misinformation.

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