After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, militia extremist groups and profiles have been quietly reorganizing and ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook.

Heads up everyone. Delete your accounts as soon as possible. Zuck has been fallen.

  • trashxeos@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    0·
    5 hours ago

    Zuck has been a fascist for a long time, he profits from it. This is only really news to anyone who hasn’t been on Facebook since 2020 or so. I left FB when it became obvious that it was going to become a fascist hell hole covered in ads with no real interactions with actual humans anymore.

      • trashxeos@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 hours ago

        A bit of both. Fascist rhetoric boosts engagement, which causes the algorithm to push that harder, which exposes the next group to a view just outside of their own Overton Window, and the discourse ratchets further towards fascism. At least, that was what I experienced on the platform, but I haven’t used it actively since 2020 so I could be out of date now.

  • Makan@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 hour ago

    “Join Your Local Militia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army. Accompanied by the logo for the Three Percenters militia network and an image of a man in tactical gear holding a long rifle, the post continues: “Now more than ever. Support the American militia page.”

    Other content and messaging in the group is similar. And despite the fact that Facebook bans paramilitary organizing and deemed the Three Percenters an “armed militia group" on its 2021 Dangerous Individuals and Organizations List, the post and group remained up until WIRED contacted Meta for comment about its existence.

    Free American Army is just one of around 200 similar Facebook groups and profiles, most of which are still live, that anti-government and far-right extremists are using to coordinate local militia activity around the country.

    After lying low for several years in the aftermath of the US Capitol riot on January 6, militia extremists have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook—with apparently little concern that Meta will enforce its ban against them, according to new research by the Tech Transparency Project, shared exclusively with WIRED.

    Individuals across the US with long-standing ties to militia groups are creating networks of Facebook pages, urging others to recruit “active patriots” and attend meetups, and openly associating themselves with known militia-related sub-ideologies like that of the anti-government Three Percenter movement. They’re also advertising combat training and telling their followers to be “prepared” for whatever lies ahead. These groups are trying to facilitate local organizing, state by state and county by county. Their goals are vague, but many of their posts convey a general sense of urgency about the need to prepare for “war” or to “stand up” against many supposed enemies, including drag queens, immigrants, pro-Palestine college students, communists—and the US government.

    ^ Last paragraph here is definitely relevant.