After years of trying to curb QAnon messaging, Twitter has now suspended more than 150,000 accounts

Twitter officials say they tracked QAnon for years, as adherents of the conspiracy theory spread misinformation and vitriol on the platform. 

While Twitter monitored, collected data and tried to suppress the reach of QAnon accounts, it had stopped short of outright banning them. That changed after the Capitol riot. On January 12, six days after the insurrection, Twitter publicly disclosed it had suspended 70,000 accounts. A Twitter spokesperson now tells CBS News the number has more than doubled — with more than 150,000 accounts suspended for engaging in "sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale."  The accounts didn't come from overseas and they weren't "bots" spewing automated falsehoods. The vast majority belonged to Americans and were "real people," though some held multiple accounts, according to senior Twitter officials.