Facebook moves against white nationalist provocateurs

Facebook announced on Friday. June 5  that it had blocked efforts by white nationalist groups to organize and arm its members in order to infiltrate protests against racism.

According to Facebook’s director of policies against dangerous organizations, Brian Fishman, small account networks linked to groups known as Proud Boys and American Guard were dismantled after they urged violent action.

“We saw that these groups were planning to gather supporters and members to come to the protests, and in some cases, they were preparing to come with weapons,” Fishman said at a press conference.

He added that the two groups had already been banned on Facebook, but that they were trying to return to the network and to Instagram, which belongs to Facebook.

Fishman’s team works to identify all accounts related to the activity but hastened their efforts when the messages urged clashes with protesters.

Some 80 Facebook accounts and 50 Instagram accounts linked to the American Guard were unsubscribed, as well as 30 related to Proud Boys in each of those networks.

“We are trying to detect attempts to return to platforms by prohibited organizations,” because “they will try to do it all at once,” Fishman said, adding that efforts are being made to identify more of these groups, without specifying which ones.

President Trump has blamed left wing groups for rioting and  looting