Twitter has announced that they have removed upwards of 70,000 QAnon accounts in the wake of the Capitol riot last Wednesday (January 6).

The social media website has also limited the accounts that have engaged with the content of the deleted accounts and deployed technology to surface "potentially harmful tweets for urgent human review."

The decision to remove the accounts was a part of a widespread move by social media accounts to prevent the incitement of further violence like that seen at the Capitol last week.

This comes after President Trump himself had his account permanently deleted in a bid to prevent a repeat of last week's events.

Capitol Riots. [[imagecaption|| Credit: PA Images]]

"Since Friday, more than 70,000 accounts have been suspended as a result of our efforts, with many instances of a single individual operating numerous accounts," Twitter said in a blog post.

"These accounts were engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service."

USA Today reports that the spread of QAnon extremism onto mainstream social media websites has increased in recent months.

The news outlet added that reactions to the mass deletions of these accounts have been met with praise on the political left, but on the right, these actions have been slammed as a form of censorship.

Following the deletion of his father's account, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: "Free Speech Is Under Attack! Censorship is happening like NEVER before! Don’t let them silence us. Sign up at http://DONJR.COM to stay connected! If I get thrown off my social platforms I’ll let you know my thoughts and where I end up."

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Twitter also issued a statement explaining the reasoning behind its decision to permanently ban Donald Trump from the platform.

The official Twitter Safety account wrote: "After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.

"In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action.

"Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.

"However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules and cannot use Twitter to incite violence. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement."

Twitter removes 70,000 QAnon accounts following Capitol riot