Kenosha Shooter and Militia’s ‘Call to Arms’ Removed from Facebook Tragically Late, Change the Terms Demands Facebook Act on Violent Event Pages
“Facebook must ensure that its event pages will not be used to kill people.”
Despite claiming to “crack down” on militia groups, Facebook apparently had no system to stop violent groups from organizing on private groups and event pages. Facebook only took down a “call to arms” event page from a group calling itself the “Kenosha Guard” after Kyle Rittenhouse killed two protesters and seriously injured a third in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. Change the Terms, a coalition of over 60 civil rights groups fighting hateful activity online, reiterated their call for Facebook to immediately put in place and enforce a stringent policy on event pages on the platform to prevent further lethal attacks and incitements to violence.
Said Henry Fernandez, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and member of Change the Terms:
“Two people died and one was maimed because a 17-year-old was encouraged by a ‘call to arms’ on a Facebook event page, to commit violence against protestors. While Facebook did the right thing removing this violent event page, doing so after lethal violence was stoked through the forum is tragically too late. Our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones and we reiterate our call for Facebook executives to act now before more violent atrocities are committed.
“Facebook must ensure that its event pages will not be used to kill people. If it cannot do so, then it should get out of the events page business. Facebook’s recent policy change to limit QAnon and militia groups was not sufficient to flag the Kenosha Guard and their related Facebook event page “Armed Citizens to Protect our Lives and Property” to prevent a loss of innocent life. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg must pay more than lip service to fighting the spread of hateful and dangerous content through Facebook and adopt Change the Terms’ model policies to reduce its spread through the platform.”
Madihha Ahussain, Muslim Advocates’ special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry, stated:
“Yet again hate groups used Facebook’s event pages to carry out threats and violence and yet again Facebook only took action after the damage was done. Muslim Advocates has consistently warned Facebook about their event pages being used as an organizing tool by hate groups and bad actors to target and harm communities in the real world. The deadly shooting in Kenosha is just one more example of how Facebook’s event pages enable violence. The company’s event page policy clearly does not go far enough. White nationalists and hate groups should not be allowed to use Facebook’s event pages and should not be on Facebook at all. As Kenosha tragically shows us, lives continue to be at stake.”
Facebook has had long-standing issues with people using the platform to incite deadly violence. For years, white nationalists and anti-Muslim hate groups have been using Facebook event pages tool to organize armed hate rallies against Muslims across the country, including outside of mosques and Islamic centers. Facebook also failed to stop calls for genoicide in Myanmar or stop prominent politicians in India who used Facebook to call for Muslims to be shot.
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Change the Terms is a coalition calling on Big Tech to institute and enforce service agreement prohibitions on hateful activities to protect public safety and respect diverse voices. The coalition includes more than 60 civil rights, human rights, technology policy and consumer protection organizations dedicated to encouraging social media sites, payment processors and chat services to commit to fair, effective and transparent rules and practices for content moderation.
