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.
Meta isn’t going to ban these groups because it drives engagement on their platform. Law enforcement knows that these people are organizing because a number of them are part of the groups. The justice department inst doing anything likely on the premise of freedom of speech.
Low information people get their “news” from Facebook. Meta’s algorithms have repeatedly been caugh promoting this sort of content because it drives engagement. This ain’t looking good.
I’d say having these groups coordinate in a platform where government officials are able to gain easy access is better than banning them and forcing them to move to more secure methods of communication.
With that being said, I do think most social media (even Lemmy) could do a better job at vetting what content is recommended to or seen by users.
Mandatory disclaimer: I in no way support these groups or their beliefs.
I’d say having these groups coordinate in a platform where government officials are able to gain easy access is better than banning them and forcing them to move to more secure methods of communication
It’s not, because extremism spreads like herpes. Making these platforms more accessible to government officials also makes them more accessible to vulnerable, stupid people – and there’s 1000 of them for every 1 fed who wants to stop a terrorist attack.
Also, the people at the core of these groups are absolutely aware of secure communication. The Facebook page might say “Rally for Freedom, 2A welcome” but behind that curtain, human dogshit are brainstorming things like “how can we get counter protesters killed”.
As dumb as most of the far-right is, very few are stupid enough to plan crimes and conspiracies on Facebook.
The ones who are stupid enough to publicly plan an attack are still being arrested for publicly planning Jan. 6 on that Nazi Twitter. I mean, nowadays Twitter is Nazi Twitter, but at the time it wasn’t, they used that other thing.
Meta isn’t going to ban these groups because it drives engagement on their platform. Law enforcement knows that these people are organizing because a number of them are part of the groups. The justice department inst doing anything likely on the premise of freedom of speech.
Low information people get their “news” from Facebook. Meta’s algorithms have repeatedly been caugh promoting this sort of content because it drives engagement. This ain’t looking good.
I’d say having these groups coordinate in a platform where government officials are able to gain easy access is better than banning them and forcing them to move to more secure methods of communication.
With that being said, I do think most social media (even Lemmy) could do a better job at vetting what content is recommended to or seen by users.
Mandatory disclaimer: I in no way support these groups or their beliefs.
It’s not, because extremism spreads like herpes. Making these platforms more accessible to government officials also makes them more accessible to vulnerable, stupid people – and there’s 1000 of them for every 1 fed who wants to stop a terrorist attack.
Also, the people at the core of these groups are absolutely aware of secure communication. The Facebook page might say “Rally for Freedom, 2A welcome” but behind that curtain, human dogshit are brainstorming things like “how can we get counter protesters killed”.
As dumb as most of the far-right is, very few are stupid enough to plan crimes and conspiracies on Facebook.
The ones who are stupid enough to publicly plan an attack are still being arrested for publicly planning Jan. 6 on that Nazi Twitter. I mean, nowadays Twitter is Nazi Twitter, but at the time it wasn’t, they used that other thing.