Peloton forced to remove QAnon groups as conspiracy theory spreads from social media to workout platforms
QAnon supporters have been banned on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter
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Your support makes all the difference.Peloton has had to remove Qanon hashtags from its fitness platform in order to stop believers of the conspiracy theory from connecting, the company has confirmed.
QAnon theorists believe that president Donald Trump is fighting a secret organization of child traffickers inside the US government.
The phrases "QANON" and "WWG1WGA," – which is the abbreviation for the theorists’ motto "Where we go one, we go all" – were used on the platforms to create class tags, where riders could interact together.
They were spotted by an editor at the Washington Post, Drew Goins, although the groups were not large.
One group, called “Q”, had 63 members. Another had only one.
"Peloton was built on community, inclusivity, and being the best version of yourself," a Peloton spokesperson said in a statement to Business Insider, saying the company had "a zero-tolerance policy against hateful content."
Peloton does not have any specific policies against the conspiracy theorists, but will remove "anything that violates" its policies "or does not reflect our company's values of inclusiveness and unity or maintain a respectful environment”, the spokesperson said.
Within the week, the class tags were unavailable; Peloton did not confirm whether QAnon tags had been removed from the platform previously.
Peloton is not the only platform having to deal with QAnon content. Facebook banned QAnon accounts from all its platforms, while Twitter has also shut down numerous accounts.
However other platforms, such as online auction site eBay, continue to platform and promote QAnon products.
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