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Back in 2022, the Center for Countering Digital Hate released a blistering report finding that social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok all failed to remove 90 percent of Islamophobic content from their platforms.
Facebook, in particular, had only stepped in to moderate seven out of 125 posts flagged by the Center, in direct violation of its own community guidelines on “expressions of contempt.”
Fast forward four years, and it’s clear the platform has only become worse.
As we reported over the weekend, the social media platform is currently teeming with various forms of Islamophobic and anti-Arab content. It’s a noxious blend of propaganda and misinformation, with often AI-generated imagery whipping viewers into a bigoted frenzy; many who interact with the miasma of online hatred then post more intolerance, harassment, and calls for violence — both from the state and by private citizens — against Muslim Americans.
While Facebook’s older, more conservative user base has long been a haven for Islamophobia, the recent frenzy is reaching a fever pitch directed at residents of Dearborn, Michigan, who make up the largest Arab-American community in the United States.
Much of that vitriol can be traced back to white supremacist social media personality Jake Lang, who recently shared an AI-generated flyer calling on his reactionary followers to wage a “crusader march on Dearborn” on Tuesday, August 18th.
The post calls on Lang’s followers to “stop [the] Islamification of America,” and features imagery of Catholic crusaders charging at Arabs with swords drawn — an overt reference to the medieval crusades, during which Catholic soldiers slaughtered millions of Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox Christians.
Despite dripping in obvious references to anti-Muslim violence, Facebook refuses to take the post down. After reporting it to the platform for going against its own policies on “calling for violence,” we received a seemingly automated message exactly one minute later explaining that Facebook “didn’t remove the post.”
Plenty of other posts remain up despite having been reported to Facebook for similar grounds. One post saying that “it’s time for hunting” hasn’t been touched a day after it was reported, and neither has a comment on Futurism’s own post calling Muslims “f**kin rag headed pedophiles.”
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