Ahead of the election, anti-government militias are using Facebook to recruit, coordinate training, and promote ballot box stakeouts. Meta isn’t shutting their groups down and is even auto-generating pages.
But WIRED reviewed posts from American Patriots Three Percent (AP3) groups and profiles that are still on the platform, including examples where members and leaders brandish AP3 insignia and share photos from their in-person training sessions.
There have also been some recent instances where Facebook has even auto-generated pages for militias. In May, Facebook auto-generated a page for AP3’s Arizona chapter. In June, Facebook auto-generated a page for “AP3 NM [New Mexico] Training Range.” If you hover over the information widget on the page, Facebook’s explainer reads: “This unofficial page was created because people on Facebook have shown interest in this place or business. It’s not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with AP3 Training Range.” (Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has repeatedly come under fire in the past for auto-generating pages for extremist, white supremacist, and terrorist organizations; a whistleblower first flagged the issue in 2020 in a supplement to an earlier petition filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)
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They’re not even hiding are they?
They may as well just superimpose a swastika on their logo and have done with it.
Why would they hide anymore? They figure they won. No sense in not taking advantage of everything that implies.