Meta Bans Andrew Tate But Not The Islamic State
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Meta Bans Andrew Tate But Not The Islamic State
For the past 10 years, the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has produced the Global Terrorism Index, or GTI, a comprehensive analysis of terrorist activities around the world.
According to this year's report, the deadliest terrorist group in the world is the Islamic State (IS) and its affiliates. For eight years straight, the militant Islamist group has been recognized as the most dangerous terrorist organization in existence. Last year, IS and its affiliate groups, Islamic State - Khorasan Province (ISK), Islamic State - Sinai Province (ISS) and Islamic State West Africa (ISWA) carried out deadly attacks in 18 countries, killing thousands of people, many of them women and children.
Which begs the question: Why is Facebook helping such a truly evil organization?
According to a recent Tech Transparency Project (TTP) report, Facebook has created at least 108 pages for Islamic State. In the name of equality, one assumes, Facebook also created dozens of pages for another well-known terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, the group behind the September 11th attacks. As the authors of the report note, these pages “were automatically generated by Facebook when a user listed a terrorist group in their profile or “checked in” to a terrorist group.”
The authors also argue that Facebook could and possibly should be held liable for these pages, as the platform “is creating, not simply hosting these pages.” In short, Facebook, a platform that now boasts 3 billion users, continues to give considerable visibility to murderous organizations involved in real-world violence, groups that are desperate to carry out further attacks in Western countries.
In 2015, during an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan Theater in Paris, IS-affiliated terrorists killed 90 people. Two years later, at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, twenty-two people — the youngest victim aged 8 — died when a man detonated a homemade bomb. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Last month, in Sweden, five men associated with IS were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack.
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The TTP authors note that Facebook continues to generate pages for the terrorist outfit even though it bans Islamic State (and Al Qaeda) under its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy. Moreover, Facebook has insisted that its technology is specially trained to detect activity from terrorist organizations. Either the technology is flawed or Facebook representatives are lying. Perhaps, most worryingly of all, as the TTP researchers point out, Facebook has these pages “to linger on its platform for years, accumulating “likes” and posts with terrorist imagery.”
Facebook clearly knows what it is doing (or not doing). In truth, the company has known for years. In 2019, a whistleblower petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission clearly highlighted the fact that the platform auto-generated hundreds of pages for Islamic State-related groups. Furthermore, for the past 3 years, TTP has published a number of reports sounding the alarm on Facebook’s auto-generation of pages for terrorist groups. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, simply chose to ignore the calls for action.
Meta won’t ban the Islamic State, but it will ban Andrew Tate. Last year, Meta, banned the influencer from both Facebook and Instagram for violating their policies.
In a statement to The Independent, a spokesperson for Meta said that Tate was removed for violating its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy —yes, the very same policy the Islamic State continues to violate.
My point here is not to defend Mr. Tate. He probably doesn’t know who I am, and he probably won’t read this piece. My point here is to point out the double standards at play. Whatever your thoughts on Andrew Tate may be, it's difficult to make the case that he poses a greater threat to the public than a terrorist group that has, over the years, killed tens of thousands of people around the world.
Rather hilariously, in January of this year, Meta assumed the chair of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT)’s Operating Board. For the uninitiated, GIFCT is an NGO that was established to tackle terrorist and violent extremist content online. In fact, Meta is a founding member of GIFCT. You really can’t make this stuff up.
Clearly, if Meta is going to continue to ban Tate, then it must ban the Islamic State (and Al Qaeda) from its platform. This is a sentence that I never thought I would ever have to write. But these are ridiculous times, and, as is clear to see, Facebook is a ridiculous platform.
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