Facebook Removes Nearly 200 Hate Group Accounts

In recent weeks, much of the United States has seen protestors take to the streets to demand justice as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, many bad actors have tried to capitalize on the situation, too, encouraging property damage and sometimes even violence against the protestors. That’s why Facebook took drastic action last week, removing nearly 200 accounts it linked to white supremacy groups.

According to Facebook, the groups encouraged their followers to attend protests and sow further chaos, sometimes even telling people to bring weapons.

“We saw that these groups were planning to rally supporters and members to physically go to the protests and in some cases were preparing to go with weapons,” Brian Fishman, Facebook’s director of counterterrorism and dangerous organizations policy, told the AP.

While it shouldn’t be discounted that Facebook took such drastic action here, it’s also the case that 200 accounts are just a drop in the bucket of hate speech on the platform. In a perfect world, Facebook wouldn’t wait for an extreme situation like the recent protests to remove these bad actors — and it would take action long before these accounts threatened violence, too.




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