For the first time ever, The Intercept has publicly revealed Facebook’s top-secret blacklist of “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations.”
The list, which includes more than 4,000 individuals and organizations, is believed to have existed for nearly a decade and has never before been seen by the public — until now.
For years, civil liberties activists and scholars have been calling on Facebook to publish the list to provide transparency and protect dissenting voices as well as racial and religious minorities. But the company has repeatedly refused to do so, keeping its blacklist hidden from public view.
No company should have this kind of unchecked power. But toothless federal agencies and a dysfunctional Congress have been unable or unwilling to act.
While the federal government has failed to provide the oversight and accountability that Facebook deserves, The Intercept’s aggressive reporting is shining a light on the tech giant’s secretive operations. And with the power of Big Tech growing, we’ll need to ramp up reporting of this kind in the future.
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Limiting free speech in the name of counterterrorism is always a fraught endeavor. But when it’s done behind a veil of secrecy by a profit-seeking megacorporation with a near monopoly on personal social networking, it becomes the stuff of dangerous autocrats.
Experts The Intercept spoke with said that Facebook’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations and related policies demonstrate a double standard in the way that white anti-government militias are treated compared with violent groups that are predominantly Middle Eastern, Black, or Latino.
One expert described Facebook’s approach as “an iron fist for some communities and more of a measured hand for others.”
For example, while Facebook applies the heaviest penalties to predominantly Muslim regions and communities, one expert noted that “hate groups designated as Anti-Muslim hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center are overwhelmingly absent from Facebook’s lists.”
In short, it appears that Facebook places harsher speech limitations on marginalized racial and religious groups while giving white militias a greater level of leniency. This, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence officials concluded earlier this year that predominantly white domestic militia groups present one of the “most lethal” threats to the country.
Facebook’s blacklist is just one example of how the government has utterly failed to provide oversight over Big Tech, and it’s no wonder why, when laws are being written by 80-year-old senators who can’t use email and enforced by underfunded agencies captured by the industries they’re meant to regulate.
That’s why The Intercept’s reporting is so crucial. We’re doing the investigative journalism needed to expose Big Tech’s secrets and abuses.
