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Hundreds of thousands of advocates of the QAnon conspiracy theory are going to have to find a new online hangout.<\/span><\/p>\n The second largest QAnon group on Facebook has been <\/span>banned<\/a><\/span> from the platform, the social network announced Thursday. The group, called \u201cOfficial Q\/Qanon,\u201d had nearly 200,000 members at the time of its removal. Facebook said it took the page down on Tuesday.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A Facebook spokesperson told <\/span>Reuters<\/a><\/span> that the group was banned over posts that repeatedly broke the platform\u2019s rules on misinformation, harassment, and hate speech.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n BBC<\/a><\/span> journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh<\/span> points out<\/a><\/span> that the \u201cOfficial Q\/Qanon\u201d group received more than 10 million engagements across 500,000 posts during the first 7 months of 2020. The group spiked in membership in early March, just as the full-force of the coronavirus pandemic began to hit the United States.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Look at how page likes went up after Covid hit. There's only one other QAnon Facebook group with more likes (215,000) and that one's still up. I just quickly had a look at the other BIG QAnon groups\/pages and they're all still there; at least for now! Analysis via @crowdtangle<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/FnnQQXijtJ<\/a><\/p>— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) August 7, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>