The Markup<\/a> found the Cue ad in data submitted by participants in the Ad Observer project<\/a> at New York University.<\/p>\n When The Markup first found the ad on Nov. 5, the page had about 8,400 likes. Eight days later, it had more than 10,800. When The Markup flagged the ad to Facebook, the company removed the page and stopped the ad.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t allow ads with praise, support, or representation for QAnon, so we have rejected this ad,\u201d Rob Leathern, a Facebook ad executive, told the Markup in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n [Read: Here\u2019s how to make your website more accessible<\/span><\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear why Facebook\u2019s protective systems failed to detect the Cue page or prevent it from running ads.<\/p>\n Facebook\u2019s QAnon policy is enforced \u201cboth through automated review and teams of reviewers,\u201d Leathern said. \u201cEnforcement will never be perfect but our systems improve with time,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n While it represents just one ad and one page on Facebook\u2019s massive platform, the Cue post, experts say, points to a larger demon: Facebook\u2019s rules consistently lag behind or fail to effectively police ads on its platform, even when warning signs are obvious.<\/p>\n \u201cFacebook has repeatedly failed at enforcing their policies,\u201d Kayla Gogarty, a researcher at Media Matters, which has found problems in Facebook\u2019s enforcement of its QAnon rules<\/a>, told The Markup.<\/p>\n The company has long struggled with how to handle incendiary content, a problem made more acute by an election year filled with conspiracies, vitriol, and misinformation. Earlier this month, Facebook received unwanted attention after former presidential adviser Steve Bannon made violent comments about the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci in a video posted to social platforms<\/a>, including Facebook\u2014and got further attention when Facebook took down the video but declined to ban Bannon from the platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facebook\u2019s efforts with tackling QAnon<\/strong><\/p>\n Facebook\u2019s dealings with QAnon have also been heavily scrutinized. The movement is a vast web of conspiracy theories that grew out of anonymous posts on online message boards from \u201cQ\u201d claiming to have top-secret information about President Donald Trump\u2019s plan to arrest members of the \u201cdeep state\u201d as secret pedophiles<\/a>. The theory absorbed other conspiracy theories, from UFOs to \u201cPizzaGate<\/a>,\u201d and grew in part as Facebook<\/a> and YouTube<\/a> began recommending groups and videos to non-adherents. By this year, Q symbols and slogans like \u201cWhere we go one, we go all<\/a>\u201d began appearing at offline rallies.<\/p>\n In August, Facebook restricted QAnon groups<\/a>, saying that they were part of a movement that has \u201cdemonstrated significant risks to public safety\u201d and pledging to stop recommending QAnon groups and to stop selling ads supporting QAnon.<\/p>\n Almost immediately the administrators of QAnon pages began changing the letter \u201cQ\u201d to \u201cCue\u201d in an attempt to evade detection, The New York Times reported in September<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then, on Oct. 6, Facebook banned<\/a> QAnon-related content outright; since then, it says<\/a>, it has removed thousands of pages and groups.<\/p>\n But, on Oct. 17 \u2014 weeks after the Times reported on the Cue renaming tactic\u2014The Markup found the Cue page up and running and directing users to its page through ads, apparently undetected.<\/p>\n The Cue page itself features a variety of QAnon videos, with opening clips featuring a flaming letter Q, with references to a \u201cStorm\u201d and \u201cOperation Q is Real.\u201d<\/p>\n Travis View, a QAnon researcher and cohost of the \u201cQAnon Anonymous\u201d podcast, called the videos on the page \u201csome of the most effective videos for radicalizing new QAnon possible recruits.\u201d<\/p>\n The purpose of the page is \u201cclearly to draw people into the radicalizing propaganda,\u201d said View. \u201cIt\u2019s designed to encourage new recruits and form a community around the existing followers.\u201d<\/p>\n The Markup reached out to the Cue page with a Facebook message and received a call from a man who said his first name was \u201cAshley\u201d and identified himself as a co-founder of Cuetoob<\/a> (which appears to be under construction). He told The Markup that Cuetoob is a video sharing site and the Cue Facebook page a way to \u201cpromote videos about the Q movement.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes in the Q movement\u2014he said the term \u201cQAnon\u201d is \u201cthe media\u2019s version of it\u201d\u2014saying, \u201cWho knows what\u2019s going on in the real world? It\u2019s hard to say, it might be all true but it might be totally baloney. But I think there\u2019s something true to it.\u201d<\/p>\n He denied any link between what he calls the \u201cQ movement\u201d to what Facebook has characterized as \u201cviolence and real world harm<\/a>,\u201d saying, \u201cit\u2019s not about violence or hate \u2026 I don\u2019t promote any kind of hate whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n As for how he evades Facebook: \u201cWe managed to skim by and it\u2019s pure luck,\u201d Ashley said. \u201cWe don\u2019t post anything that\u2019s completely obvious. Videos are a little bit harder [for Facebook to catch], since they\u2019re a little longer, so you have to watch them.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that \u201cwhen people start posting the actual Q on [the page], we try to delete those items\u201d to avoid detection by Facebook.<\/p>\n He described Facebook\u2019s efforts to rein in QAnon content as counterproductive. \u201cI think they\u2019ve just made it bigger,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Facebook does disclose who pays for political ads on its platform\u2014in addition to other transparency measures\u2014but because the Cue ad was apparently not considered political by Facebook\u2019s systems, the platform did not report its customer\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n The Cue ad was targeted<\/a> at people interested in Donald Trump, Eric Trump, the Heritage Foundation, or Rush Limbaugh, among others, according to data collected by the Ad Observer project at NYU<\/a>.<\/p>\n Facebook has consistently refused to disclose the targeting choices advertisers make. Data submitted by participants in the Ad Observer project does include targeting information. Facebook has sought to shut down<\/a> that project\u2019s collection of data about Facebook ads.<\/p>\n The Cue ad is not the only ad targeted at Trump supporters in the past few weeks that Facebook has failed to classify properly<\/a>; the NYU Ad Observer project data also includes ads from the NRA<\/a> and from a New Mexico rally against coronavirus-related restrictions<\/a> targeted at people \u201cinterested in Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Ads about politics are supposed to be subject to additional scrutiny. Facebook also began a post-election moratorium on Nov. 4 on all ads about politics or social issues, designed to prevent the spread of election-related misinformation.<\/p>\n The failure to identify political ads irks Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who in an emailed statement called the Cue ad found by The Markup \u201chighly divisive, misinformation-laden political advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n Warner sponsored a bill, the Honest Ads Act, which would require the disclosure of targeting information in political advertising \u201cprecisely because we need greater transparency on efforts such as this.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n This article was <\/span>originally published on The Markup<\/a> by Jeremy B. Merrill and was republished under the <\/span>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> <\/span>license.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
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