Social-Media
Facebook restricts the spread of radical boogaloo sites and groups
The word "boogaloo," an Internet slang that is used in some far-right extremist circles to refer to the idea of the imminent second American war, as first reported by Reuters, is being restricted on the spread of Facebook pages and groups. More recently, the term boogaloo developed into a disjointed anti-government movement with different and sometimes conflicting opinions.
Facebook claims it can no longer promote boogaloo pages and groups to users and is demoting them in search results, Facebook tells The Verge. The move was made on June 2nd.
On 1 May, when using images or statements that depict weapons of violence, Facebook updated its Violence and Incitement policies to ban boogaloo and similar terms.
On Thursday, in Nevada, the FBI arrested three men who identified themselves with the movement in the Boogaloo on charges of terrorist acting to incite violence to protest against police in Las Vegas. CNN's reports use more and more self-describe boogaloo, many of which are also gun rights supporters, to encourage anti-government marches involving the use of weapons to condemn racism and police violence.
125 Facebook boogaloo groups with more than 72,000 members combined found a 22nd April Tech Transparency Project (TTP) report. In the three months before the report was published, over 60 percent of groups were created.
"Mehrer members discussed tactical strategy, combat medicine and various types of weapons within several private boogaloo Facebook groups TTP was able to access," said TTP 's report.
"Certain members have seemed inspired by recent tweets from President Donald Trump calling on people to 'liberate' states in which governors have imposed residency orders," continued the report. A report by the Network Contagion Institute stated that "sustaining and increasing activities over the CO VID-19 period have more than doubled [on Reddit] since November 2019."
According to a separate Network Contagion Institute report, 'boogaloo' was inspired by the title of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo in 1984.
"As adopted by meme culture, liberarians, weapons enthusiasts and antiquists often used the term [boogaloo] as the name to describe an uprising that is an almost mirror copy of, or a succession of, the American civil war against, government or left-wing political opponents," the report says.
