Facebook And Instagram Hashtag Crackdown Struggles To Shut Down Covid-19 Conspiracies

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has been going on a hashtag crackdown but ones linked to QAnon and Covid-19 conspiracy theories remain live, even if Facebook and Instagram are removing some after being alerted by Forbes. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images Over the last two months, Facebook has pledged to use artificial intelligence and human moderators to crack down on misinformation spread across its platforms by QAnon and Covid-19 conspiracy theorists. But in some ways it’s struggling to live up to that pledge. This month it has been forced to block one hashtag on its own site and another on Instagram that were hugely popular amongst QAnon and Covid-19 conspiracy theory spreaders, not because moderators or Facebook AI discovered them, but after being alerted to them by Forbes.  The first was #DarkToLight on Facebook. As many as 30,000 people were posting about it just before it was taken down last week. It included a large number of posts containing what appeared to be QAnon-linked conspiracy theories, those that suggest an elusive deep state of the super-rich and hyper-powerful are trying to control the masses through myriad machinations and are sexually…
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