How Far-Right Extremist Militias Organize on Facebook

Far-right militias are using Facebook to organize ahead of the US presidential election. After lying low for several years in the aftermath of the Capitol riot on January 6, militia extremists have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook—with apparently little concern that Meta will enforce its own ban against them, according to new research by the Tech Transparency Project shared exclusively with WIRED. These groups, which are set up locally, encourage members to engage in combat training and recruitment.

Today on WIRED Politics Lab, we discuss Facebook’s culpability, and what this means as we head into November.

Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Tess Owen is <a data-offer-url=«https://twitter.com/misstessowen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor» class=«external-link» data-event-click='{«element»:«ExternalLink»,«outgoingURL»:«https://twitter.com/misstessowen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor»}' href=«https://twitter.com/misstessowen?ref_src=» https: rel=«noopener» target="_blank">@misstessowen

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

David Gilbert: Hey there. I'm David Gilbert, senior reporter on the WIRED Politics team. Before we begin today's podcast, I wanted to mention that we're putting together an episode all about disinformation. Think about it as WIRED's guide to disinfo, and we need you to be a part of it. What questions do you have about disinfo? We want to hear it all. We'll be reading through the mailbox and answering your questions on the show. So please send us your questions related to disinformation to [email protected]. That's