George Floyd protests: US combs Facebook to hunt down alleged rioters and looters
- The DOJ, working with local police, is finding social media a useful tool in its federal crackdown
- The technique has alarmed civil liberties advocates, who say the strategy could chill online speech
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Betsy Woodruff Swan on politico.com on June 12, 2020
On May 30, according to court documents, the police department in Page, Arizona, got a tip from someone described only as a “Concerned Citizen.” A young man named Loren Reed had set up a private Facebook chat group and was encouraging people to riot at the county courthouse.
The police department used an undercover Facebook account to message Reed.
“I wanna burn down the courthouse,” Reed wrote to the undercover officers, before adding them to that chat.
Over the next three days, the police took dozens of screenshots of the group’s conversations.
“Arson, Assault, Conspiracy, here we come,” Reed allegedly wrote in one message.