The recently thwarted Michigan kidnapping plot highlights social media's role in promoting violent extremism, as well as building a case against extremists
In June, one of the suspects in the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took to the relative privacy of a Facebook group to make clear his brewing hatred.
Washington Post
Context & Ripple Effects
Five months before the plot's unraveling, [[a:953596|Whitmer had publicly pressed Facebook to enforce its own rules after threats against her surfaced in private groups, one of which the company removed]]. This article shows why the pressure landed: the same relative privacy that let a suspect broadcast his hatred in June also created the record prosecutors now use against him.
Facebook faces renewed, named pressure from Whitmer to moderate private groups, after having already removed at least one group tied to threats against her in May.
The suspects' own group posts become core prosecutorial evidence, making the platform's archives central to the government's case.
Second-order effects
Moderation gaps in private groups become a measurable accountability issue: TTP's later findings on ~200 militia groups and Facebook auto-generating militia pages give watchdogs and lawmakers a documented enforcement failure to cite.
Extremist networks adapt by treating Facebook groups as low-visibility coordination infrastructure rather than public recruitment fronts, forcing enforcement toward closed spaces where fewer moderators and researchers are watching.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, private social platforms are structurally positioned as both extremist infrastructure and the state's evidentiary archive — the same posts that radicalize also convict, sharpening arguments for algorithmic recommendation and group-formation features to carry distribution-level liability.
Domestic extremism cases increasingly turn on platform records, pulling Facebook's group product into recurring congressional and legal scrutiny regardless of which administration is in office.
The trend: Private social platforms are consolidating two roles at once — the organizing layer for domestic extremist movements and the primary evidence source prosecutors use against them — with moderation enforcement lagging both.
It's hard to look at this Whitmer kidnapping indictment and not think of Mark Zuckerberg's June 2017 speech on building a recommendation engine to surface “meaningful communities.” https://twitter.com/...
Fortunately, the men charged in kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Whitmer were not too bright and left a long trail of social media clues about their conspiracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
“Not only have many of these Michigan pages and groups been on Facebook for years, the Facebook algorithm actively recommended other militia-related groups and pages to join, allowing each page and group to expand their reach.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
.@cwarzel, on point. As always. @facebook is a machine built to destroy our informational ecosystem and, thus, our society and democracy. No matter how many militia groups is removes (after something awful happens), it's business model and algorithm will always be the same. https…
I'm conflicted writing about FB like this now. feel like I've turned into a predictable crank finding new ways to say the same thing. But felt important to me to note that FB's choices to stop destabilization in US are essentially just attempts to make the platform less effective
I'm not Facebook's #1 fan, but I think the current freakout about inept criminals using a private groups feature on the site just like millions of non-criminals do is a bit over the top.
Entire newsroom pulled together to report this story quickly, accurately, and comprehensively. It shows how Facebook, conspiracies, and disdain for women and covid rules played into a wild plan to kidnap Whitmer to send a message before the election: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/…
Murders, genocides and your run of the mill human rights abuses happen on social media platforms every day around the world. Sadly, this is not new. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Proud of the work our team did to expose these militias. The most shocking part of our study? They organize online, in the open, and Facebook is algorithmically suggesting that people join their group. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
“That's why [FB] is quietly, temporarily dismantling normally crucial pieces of its infrastructure in anticipation of a crucial moment for American democracy. It's a tacit admission that what is good for FB is, on the whole, destabilizing for society” https://www.nytimes.com/...
Familiar story: the group that planned to kidnap Gov. Whitmer and the domestic terrroism used Facebook to meet up, organize and plan. Facebook is mentioned in the complaint. It's becoming the story for every act of terrorism we see recently it seems. https://www.nytimes.com/...
When airbags proved defective they recalled them and replaced millions of them for free. When algorithms foment domestic terrorism they get some bad headlines. https://twitter.com/...
I did a thread here about my column and why I feel like a crank writing this all the time but also why I think it's important to have this discussion because things are very broken and nobody seems to want to do the painful things that are necessary to deescalate https://twitter.…