Far right militias are returning to Facebook — and it’s looking the other way

Inattention from the platform’s parent company Meta risks abetting another event like Jan. 6.

It’s happening again: Armed, antigovernment militias and other like-minded groups are organizing and recruiting on social media at a scope and pace not seen since the lead up to Jan. 6. This time, according to a startling report by journalist Tess Owen for Wired magazine last week, Meta’s Facebook platform is their haven of choice.

I say “again” because we’ve been here before. Work done by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack demonstrated the breadth of social media’s contribution to rallying people to Washington, D.C., and stoking the violence and mob mentality that day. While only a hint of the Jan. 6 committee’s work was included in their public report, committee investigators prepared a 122-page memo detailing their research and their interviews of workers at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms. According to a draft version of the report, first revealed by The Washington Post, the investigators’ key finding was that those tech companies ignored their own employees’ who raised red flags about increasingly violent chatter. Is history repeating itself — and if so, why Facebook, why now, and what can be done?

Three years after the Capitol insurrection, extremist, far-right militias — many already banned by Facebook — are back on the platform. This time, they appear more organized, smarter and more encouraged by Meta’s indifference toward enforcing previous bans. The groups are quite open about their particular niche ideology, such as antigovernment Three Percenter beliefs, and about advertising meetups and combat training to prepare, as one recruiter wrote, for “what’s coming.” Whatever that is.