Facebook Allows Pro-ISIS And Neo-Nazi Content To Remain Online
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Extremist Content Online: Facebook Edition
Facebook Allows Pro-ISIS And Neo-Nazi Content To Remain Online
(New York, N.Y.) — The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) reports weekly on the
methods used by extremists to exploit Meta-owned Facebook to spread propaganda,
recruit followers, and incite violence in order to hold the popular social
media platform accountable for its failure to prevent the dissemination of
extremist and terrorist content.
This past week, CEP located on Facebook a variety of pro-ISIS content ranging
from full-length videos to pages from ISIS’s al-Naba newsletters, as well as
Amaq news photos and text news posts. The seven accounts that had their
followers listed averaged 886 friends or followers. Only after CEP reported the
accounts and content did Facebook start to remove some, but not all content.
Three accounts and two full-length videos were removed, but after the latter
were online for months and received hundreds of views.
CEP also located a Facebook group dedicated to posting updates and raising
money for neo-Nazi rapper Philip Hassler (“Mr. Bond”). The group page was still
online 36 hours after being reported to Facebook.
Pro-ISIS and Neo-Nazi Content Located on Facebook
CEP researchers located 10 pro-ISIS accounts on Facebook in a sample of
content found on October 26. The profiles posted various pro-ISIS material,
including full-length ISIS videos modified to evade content detection, clips
from propaganda videos, pages taken from ISIS’s al-Naba newsletter, and Amaq
news photos and news posts.
Seven profiles had between 30 and 4,729 friends or followers, with an average
of 886 and a median of 140. Three accounts did not have their number of friends
or followers listed.
One account, with 603 friends, posted a full-length ISIS video, “Jihad of the
Believers Continues #7,” on August 28, 2022. The video was originally released
on March 24, 2022. The video had 900 views 59 days after it was uploaded. The
video located on Facebook covered ISIS logos on the top right of the screen
with an emoji. It is not clear why Facebook did not detect the video upload.
The video was removed after CEP reported it.
The ISIS video “Jihad of the Believers Continues #7,” on Facebook, 59 days
after it was uploaded. ISIS logos on the top right of the screen were hidden by
an emoji. Facebook removed the video after CEP reported it.
CEP researchers also located an upload of the full-length ISIS video “The
Malicious Seeds in the Imprisoned Bilad al-Haramayn.” The video was originally
released on December 19, 2015, but the uploader was able to post the
approximately 34-minute video on Facebook on May 31, 2022. One hundred
forty-eight days later, the video had over 1,500 views. Like the other
full-length ISIS video that CEP located, the account owner obstructed logos on
the top right of the screen with an emoji. Facebook removed the video within 36
hours after CEP reported it.
CEP reported the 10 accounts to Facebook on October 26. Approximately 24 hours
later, Facebook had removed three accounts, and seven remained online.
CEP also located a Facebook group dedicated to posting updates and raising
money for a neo-Nazi rapper, Philip Hassler, known as “Mr. Bond.” Hassler is
serving a 10-year prison sentence in Austria for inciting violence and
promoting neo-Nazism. The Facebook group contains extensive links to the
musician’s content, which encourages violence, and links to websites where
supporters can make donations to Hasler’s commissary account and purchase
t-shirts and other merchandise. The Facebook group also contains neo-Nazi
symbols, antisemitic images, and album covers glorifying white supremacist mass
shooters such as Dylann Roof and Robert Bowers.
CEP reported the page to Facebook for violating their Community Standards
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speech, however, it was still accessible approximately 36 hours later.
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