Dear Friend –

In a shocking new article published last week, WIRED magazine covered research done by the Tech Transparency Project revealing that extremist militia groups here in the U.S. are ramping up their recruitment activity on Facebook – and Facebook’s parent company Meta seems unwilling to do anything about it. [1]

In theory, Facebook bans paramilitary organizing on their platform and maintains an extensive list of “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” used to moderate activity on the platform. [2]

In practice, however, Meta is simply not allocating the resources needed to keep these dangerous groups from utilizing Facebook for recruitment … and it’s a far better recruitment platform with a wider audience than the fringe platforms that are typically associated with extremist movements.

If Facebook doesn’t significantly step up their enforcement activity immediately, we could soon see more political violence in the U.S. like the January 6th Capitol insurrection. Sign our petition to Facebook today: Enforce your policies and crack down on the extremist militias who are using your platform to recruit and organize.

SIGN THE PETITION

The groups in question here are names you’ll likely find familiar if you’ve been following the numerous trials and convictions for those who organized the 2021 attack on our U.S. Capitol, such as the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters. These groups are coming back to life amid growing anti-government rhetoric in mainstream political discourse.

Unfortunately, Meta seems to be retreating from the problem instead of treating it seriously. Last year, they were one of the Big Tech companies that laid off huge chunks of the teams responsible for fighting online misinformation and hate speech. [3] Now, the company is planning layoffs at its Oversight Board, which at times reviews Meta's content-moderation decisions across its apps and platforms. [4]

For a company with a dominant position in the social media ecosystem and billions upon billions of dollars in revenue, this is simply unacceptable. These extremist groups have already shown that they’re willing to use violence to achieve their goals – and Facebook’s ineffectual enforcement of its own policies only serves to embolden them.

Sign our petition and tell Facebook today: Enforce your policies and cut off all the extremist American militias who are surging on your platform to organize violence.

Thank you for speaking out today,

Nicole Gill
Co-founder and Executive Director
Accountable Tech

Sources:

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