Change the Terms Coalition: Exposing Facebook Event Pages As Fatal Design Defect Ignored for Years
Following the murder of two people in Kenosha after a militia’s Facebook event page urged people to come to the area armed, Mark Zuckerberg called Facebook’s failed moderation of the event page an “oversight.” Balestra Media consulted on a CTT open letter with a list of urgently needed steps the platform must take to find and remove any event pages being used to plot and incite violence.
Change the Terms steering committee member Muslim Advocates has been leading the charge to remove hateful event pages for five years and Balestra Media centered their work to push Facebook to address the problem. Working with their policy and communications teams, Balestra assisted with three major pieces about repeated warnings from Muslim Advocates to executives at Facebook about changes the platform needed to make. We drove damning and powerful headlines from Business Insider “Facebook 'did nothing' about violent militia and hate groups for 5 years despite being warned at least 10 times, advocacy group says”; Gizmodo “Facebook Was Warned for 5 Years About Violent Event Pages but Didn’t Act, Civil Rights Group Says”; and Mother Jones “Facebook Groups Sent Armed Vigilantes to Kenosha. Your Polling Place Could Be Next,” which all showed that the existence of violent event pages wasn’t an “oversight” at all, but instead a problem willfully ignored by Facebook, putting diverse communities in danger and needing to be fixed ahead of the 2020 contentious presidential election.
As The Verge exclusively reported that Facebook took no meaningful action after the Kenosha Guard page was flagged 455 times for the platform by users, Balestra Media pitched the open letter as an exclusive to the outlet. In the resulting piece focused on Change the Terms, “Activists call on Facebook to ban armed event listings after Kenosha shooting,” The Verge directed their audience to the coalition’s pressure on the platform with concrete recommendations. Complete with quotes from the CTT letter and interviews, journalist Russell Brandom forced the Facebook response, “We are reviewing Change the Terms’ thoughtful suggestions and look forward to continuing the ongoing conversation with them.” Anticipating more excuses from Facebook about their team’s ability to monitor dangerous pages and enforce their policy, Free Press’ Jessica J. González closed the piece by saying, “Facebook must commit to stopping hate, and invest more in doing so. It’s not hard to distinguish between white supremacist and militia groups and those protesting hate...It’s even easier to identify and remove violent groups calling for people to bring weapons to in-person events organized on Facebook.”
While the tragic events in Kenosha drew fresh attention to the threat posed by Facebook pages, Balestra Media used the Change the Terms’ Twitter account to draw attention to the real-world threats posed by Facebook pages operated by hateful and violent organizations seeking to recruit and incite. The coalition’s priority was to raise the work of Muslim Advocates who had tirelessly campaigned for five years to demand Facebook remove pages promoting events where attendees are encouraged to show up armed.
Concerned about the use of event pages to organize violent and hateful activities through the 2020 presidential election, Change the Terms continued to press Facebook for a plan to better monitor and enforce their policies in private meetings with the platform and in earned and social media. Change the Terms tweets highlighting the threat posed by Facebook pages garnered ~236,814 impressions in 2020.
