Facebook released only some of the pages and content publicly, declining to release the depth some pages went to stoke racial tension.
by Ben Collins and Ben Popken
Though the precise identity of the groups who wrote these posts was not made public, there is evidence that they were not posted by Hispanic groups, or liberal activists who have been critical of ICE. Instead, they bear similarity to the Russian trolls who tried to divide voters in the 2016 election.
On Tuesday morning, the political and tech worlds were startled to learn that Facebook had identified and stopped a new covert campaign to spread divisive political messages on its platform, the first such announcement since 2017.
But Facebook released only some of the pages and content publicly. What it did not reveal was the depth some of the pages went to stoke racial tension and incite division among Americans.
NBC News was able to retrieve some of the pages Facebook deleted via a web archive search, which allows people to see internet pages that have been deleted. A review of some of the deleted pages from groups identified by Facebook as part of the “inauthentic coordinated behavior†found efforts to target people based on liberal politics as well as Hispanic and African heritage.
One deleted post called for protesters to occupy the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Posted by a group called “Resisters,†an event that was initially titled “Stop Ripping Families Apart! DC,†was later retitled “Stop Ripping Families Apart! Take over ICE HQ†after Facebook users said they would attend. A total of 131 people later marked themselves as having attended the June 27 rally outside of ICE’s Washington offices.
https://nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/facebook-s-new-foreign-influence-report-excluded-most-divisive-rhetoric-n896391
