On Tuesday morning, the political and tech worlds were startled to learn that Facebook
had identified and stopped a new covert campaign to spread divisive political messages on its platform, the first such announcement since 2017.
But
Facebook released only some of the pages and content publicly. What it
did not reveal was the depth some of the pages went to stoke racial
tension and incite division among Americans.
NBC
News was able to retrieve some of the pages Facebook deleted via a web
archive search, which allows people to see internet pages that have been
deleted.
A review of some of the deleted pages from groups identified
by Facebook as part of the “inauthentic coordinated behavior” found
efforts to target people based on liberal politics as well as Hispanic
and African heritage.
One deleted post called for protesters to occupy the headquarters of
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agency.
Posted by a group called “Resisters,” an event
that was initially titled “Stop Ripping Families Apart! DC,” was later
retitled “Stop Ripping Families Apart! Take over ICE HQ” after Facebook
users said they would attend. A total of 131 people later marked
themselves as having attended the June 27 rally outside of ICE’s
Washington offices.
Read more: Facebook says it found new covert campaign to spread divisive political messages
