Facebook Removes Ice-tracking Page After Us Government ‘outreach’

Meta has removed a Facebook page dedicated to search Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) action successful Chicago aft nan Justice Department sewage involved. 

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote connected X Tuesday that Facebook had taken down an unnamed “large group page that was being utilized to dox and target” ICE agents aft outreach from nan DOJ. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed nan group, which he did not identify, “was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm.” Its removal follows Apple and Google blocking ICE-tracking apps, besides pursuing authorities demands.

The DOJ declined to remark beyond Bondi’s post, and ICE did not instantly respond to a petition for remark astir whether circumstantial reliable threats were made to ICE agents connected nan page. The DOJ appears to person taken action aft Laura Loomer, a right-wing influencer who has led respective campaigns against national workers she deems disloyal to Trump, posted astir a Facebook group called “ICE Sighting- Chicagoland” that she claimed “is providing location updates connected ICE raids and ICE supplier locations successful nan Chicago area.” While neither nan DOJ nor Meta confirmed nan sanction of nan group taken down, Loomer claimed a DOJ root told her nan agency had seen her station and contacted Meta astir specified pages. 

As President Donald Trump has ramped up migration enforcement crossed nan country, including done much fierce strategies for illustration workplace raids, respective devices and organization groups person popped up to alert group to ICE’s beingness successful their area. The ICEBlock app utilized to anonymously study ICE sightings rose to nan apical of Apple’s app store this summertime earlier it was similarly removed by Apple aft nan DOJ reached out, pinch Bondi claiming it was “designed to put ICE agents astatine consequence conscionable for doing their jobs.” ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron told Fox News Digital it was “patently false” that nan app “served to harm rule enforcement officers.”

Bondi’s connection raises questions astir whether nan authorities engaged successful forbidden jawboning

As backstage assemblage businesses, Apple and Meta tin mostly legally region groups aliases apps arsenic they spot fit. But Bondi’s connection raises questions astir whether nan authorities engaged successful forbidden jawboning, aliases pressuring backstage actors to return down ineligible speech. It’s not clear precisely what nan DOJ said to platforms that prompted them to return action, aliases whether Meta mightiness person removed nan page moreover without authorities intervention. But nan management has recently suggested that a wide scope of speech mightiness represent actionable support for home coercion and pledged to ace down connected it. 

The incident is peculiarly notable since President Donald Trump and different Republicans person many times characterized nan Biden administration’s outreach to tech platforms complete covid and voting misinformation arsenic censorship, slamming nan government’s role successful flagging posts they branded harmful to voting engagement aliases nationalist health. Conservative authorities AGs sued nan management successful a lawsuit that went each nan measurement to nan Supreme Court, which did not find a “concrete link” betwixt nan platforms’ removal decisions and nan government’s connection pinch nan tech executives. 

There’s besides small nonstop grounds that ICE-tracking devices person led to violence. The management amped up unit aft claiming that a shooter astatine a Dallas section agency successful September utilized search apps, but it’s unclear what, if any, domiciled they played successful nan onslaught (which led to nan deaths of two detainees and nary ICE officers). ICE agents person knowledgeable much assaults arsenic their beingness successful American communities has increased, but to a acold little grade than nan authorities has claimed, a caller National Public Radio study found.