“Facebook chose not to act on militia complaints before Kenosha shooting”
-- The Verge 8.26.20

Last week, Facebook received over 400 warnings from users about a page encouraging violence in Kenosha. What was their response? Did they shut down the page? Not until two people were shot dead by a 17-year-old white supremacist armed with an AR-15.

We cannot sit idly by when Facebook is actively ignoring warnings about imminent violence. Something is critically broken.

Join us and sign our call to Facebook: They must make fundamental reforms to address the proliferation of hate speech and calls for violence on their platform.

Facebook’s negligence is racist, and they’re putting Black lives at risk by allowing their platform to remain a breeding ground for violent white supremacists. And it’s not just a problem of allowing violent content on their platform. It’s also about the information their algorithms promote and how those play a role in spreading these violent and racist ideas:

• According to The New York Times’ Kevin Roose, last week, the most viewed video about Jacob Blake was a video justifying the shooting.
• Praise for the shooter who murdered 2 people has been spreading across Facebook -- a fundraiser for the shooter was shared more than 17,000 times by almost 300 groups whose combined reach is almost 4 million followers.

This is a fundamental problem with the platform, and if they refuse to take action and root out this toxin, we must pressure them into action.

Thank you for joining us in this fight,

Nicole Gill
Co-Founder and Executive Director