Down the rabbit hole: how QAnon conspiracies thrive on Facebook

Guardian investigation finds more than 3m aggregate followers and members support QAnon on Facebook, and their numbers are growing

In early May, QAnon braced for a purge. Facebook had removed a small subset - five pages, six groups and 20 profiles - of the community on the social network, and as word of the bans spread, followers of Q began preparing for a broader sweep.

Some groups changed their names, substituting 17" for Q" (the 17th letter of the alphabet); others shared links to back-up accounts on alternative social media platforms with looser rules.