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100 days of warning: inside the Boogaloo killings of US security personnel
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/boogaloo-killing-facebook-dave-patrick-underwood-policeExtremism experts warned that the anti-government movement was planning attacks online. Why didnt Facebook act?
One hundred days before Dave Patrick Underwood was murdered on 29 May, a group of analysts who monitor online extremism concluded that an attack like the one that killed him was coming.
An anti-government movement intent on killing law enforcement officers had been growing rapidly on social media, the analysts at the Network Contagion Research Institute warned.
Building on the work of other analysts, the researchers had identified Facebook groups where thousands of members obsessed over the idea of an imminent American civil war called the Boogaloo, displaying photographs of rifles and combat equipment, sharing advice for making weapons and posting memes about killing police and federal officials. The Facebook groups were particularly dangerous, the researchers concluded, because they were helping to build local connections between nascent domestic extremists. The movement appeared to be successfully recruiting members of the US military.
Facebook responded to findings that it was studying trends around the use of the word Boogaloo on its platforms, and that it would remove any content that violated its rules against inciting hatred or violence. Over the next few months, a spokesperson said, it would remove 800 individual Boogaloo-related posts that violated its policies. But it did not ban the Boogaloo movement from its platform, or take the majority of the Boogaloo groups down...
One hundred days before Dave Patrick Underwood was murdered on 29 May, a group of analysts who monitor online extremism concluded that an attack like the one that killed him was coming.
An anti-government movement intent on killing law enforcement officers had been growing rapidly on social media, the analysts at the Network Contagion Research Institute warned.
Building on the work of other analysts, the researchers had identified Facebook groups where thousands of members obsessed over the idea of an imminent American civil war called the Boogaloo, displaying photographs of rifles and combat equipment, sharing advice for making weapons and posting memes about killing police and federal officials. The Facebook groups were particularly dangerous, the researchers concluded, because they were helping to build local connections between nascent domestic extremists. The movement appeared to be successfully recruiting members of the US military.
Facebook responded to findings that it was studying trends around the use of the word Boogaloo on its platforms, and that it would remove any content that violated its rules against inciting hatred or violence. Over the next few months, a spokesperson said, it would remove 800 individual Boogaloo-related posts that violated its policies. But it did not ban the Boogaloo movement from its platform, or take the majority of the Boogaloo groups down...
A long read, but well worth it, imo.
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100 days of warning: inside the Boogaloo killings of US security personnel (Original Post)
friendly_iconoclast
Jan 2021
OP
dalton99a
(81,515 posts)1. Zuckerberg has a lot of blood on his hands
Maraya1969
(22,482 posts)2. Well that is fucking horrendous. I'm glad the police are finally
being made aware of who the actual enemy is.
SergeStorms
(19,201 posts)3. Prepare to be regulated, Facebook.
Should have been done long, long ago. Our country might never have needed to suffer four years of Trump's lies and half-assed "leadership." I hate Facebook with a passion, and truly believe its done far more damage to our country and society than any good it might have done. I wish they could just blow it all to hell. I'll push the plunger.
nam78_two
(14,529 posts)4. Bookmarked
I am too weary to even be mad at Facebook anymore. The thing is a fucking cancer.