A Christian rock singer based in Texas said Facebook has deleted several of his accounts after mistakenly believing he is connected to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Marq Andrew Speck, lead singer and keyboardist of Sweet Crystal, said seven of his personal and business accounts were removed earlier this month, and that the social network has removed him as an administrator from two more.
Among some of the now-deleted accounts are: Speck's personal page, his band's profile, a musical side projects' page, and another expressing support for armed service members and first responders.
In a post on one of his remaining accounts, Speck noted how he is known by his nickname "Q" and is featured prominently on his personal music logo, merchandise and multiple websites.
The musician was born Mark Andrew Speck, but legally changed the spelling of his name to Marq in seventh grade.
"In 10 years, I have never posted anything political, intentionally controversial, disparaging or hateful. I post music, videos, photos, inspirational sayings and conversations intended to uplift and entertain," Speck wrote. "The removing of all my work is both discouraging and disheartening to my family, friends fans and followers."
Speck believes that because of how he spells his full name, he has inadvertently been roped into Facebook's wide-scale crackdown on accounts linked to the QAnon theory which falsely claims President Donald Trump is fighting a secret war against the "deep state" and a secret satanic pedophile ring involving high-profile politicians and Hollywood elites.
"There's a q-a-n in a row, but that's my name," he told WXYZ.
Speck described his heartache that the photographs and videos which he had amassed down the years were now inaccessible.
"The hardest thing is people have passed from my life and we have memorial videos and stuff that were shot on Facebook, that only exist on Facebook, and they're gone," he said. "I can't re-friend these people because they died and that's heartbreaking."
Newsweek has approached Facebook for comment.
On Thursday, Facebook announced that it have removed thousands of pages linked to QAnon since expanding its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy to address "militarized social movements and violence-inducing conspiracy networks."
Since August, the platform said they have removed about 1,700 Pages, 5,600 Groups and about 18,700 Instagram accounts linked to QAnon.
"We are continuing to strengthen our enforcement by identifying additional militarized social movements, and removing more Groups, Pages and Instagram accounts tied to QAnon," Facebook said in a statement.
"We'll continue consulting experts to inform our enforcement strategy and identifying and removing content accordingly."
