Facebook has taken down a “large group page that was being used to dox and target [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents in Chicago,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X Tuesday.
Facebook parent Meta confirmed the move in a brief statement shared with Fast Company Tuesday.
“This Group was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm,” a Meta spokesperson said.
Those policies include prohibitions against outing undercover law enforcement and supporting vandalism, among other restrictions. Meta did not immediately respond to an inquiry about which of those rules were allegedly violated.
Neither Meta nor Bondi’s statement identified the Facebook group in question. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that it was a group called “ICE Sighting – Chicagoland” with roughly 76,000 members.
Numerous Chicago Facebook groups and pages have featured reports and discussions of ICE activity in recent weeks, as state and local officials and many residents have condemned and protested the agency’s aggressive operations in the area. Another Chicago Facebook page, condemned in conservative media in recent days for allegedly encouraging resistance against ICE, appeared to still be live Tuesday afternoon.
Conservatives have previously criticized Facebook parent Meta and other social media companies for bowing to what they saw as censorship demands from the left, including pressure from the Biden administration to take down certain pandemic-related posts.
“I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) last year. Jordan praised Zuckerberg earlier this year as the company ended a fact-checking program and other content restrictions conservatives saw as limiting free speech.
Meta also agreed to pay $25 million to settle claims related to Facebook and Instagram suspending President Trump’s accounts after the January 6, 2020, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which the president called a First Amendment violation, citing alleged government pressure on the company.
Other online platforms including Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store have also reportedly recently taken down tools used for tracking ICE operations, with Apple telling Fox Business at least one ICE-tracking app was removed after a law enforcement request.
Courts have historically held that it’s legal under the First Amendment to film and otherwise document law enforcement activity.
“The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs,” Bondi said in her post. “The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.”
