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May 12, 2020 02:54 pm

Facebook Violence Curbs Thwarted by Groups Using Code Words

An anonymous reader shares a report: When President Donald Trump urged Americans last month to "LIBERATE VIRGINIA" on Twitter, a private Facebook group named "Boogaloo Enthusiasts: CORONAPOCALYPSE" welcomed the tweet. "Did Trump just call for boogaloo?," one member wrote, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Well, you heard the man! Let's go bois," another responded. Membership in Facebook groups focused on violent anti-government uprisings in the U.S. has doubled in recent weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has spread and governments impose restrictions aimed at slowing the contagion. To get their message across, these groups are exploiting loopholes in Facebook anti-violence policies -- using satire, code words and other tactics that mask their motives, according to experts who follow fringe groups on social media. One of the more common such phrases is "boogaloo," which can refer to a kind of music but more recently has come to describe a pending civil war. The boogaloo groups, and other extremist groups deploying similar tactics, pose yet another test for the Menlo Park, California-based social media giant, as it tries to strike a workable balance between allowing free discourse and curbing disinformation or those encouraging violence and law breaking.

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