Facebook appears to be *finally* taking seriously what is happening inside Facebook Groups, the product that they have aggressively pushed for years despite mountains of evidence that they were being used to recruit and organize violent extremists https://about.fb.com/news/2021/01/responding-to-the-violence-in-washington-dc/

In June I reported on the vast ecosystem of QAnon Facebook groups. I began reporting on them bc Facebook's recommendation algorithm started recommending that I join QAnon groups. FB's algorithm was putting this in front of people who didn't even seek it https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/25/qanon-facebook-conspiracy-theories-algorithm

In August I reported again on those QAnon FB groups, documenting frightening growth as Facebook's recommendation algorithm continued to promote the conspiracy movement to new audiences. FB still had no policy on QAnon. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/11/qanon-facebook-groups-growing-conspiracy-theory

NPR asked FB policy exec @ngleicher about my reporting and his answer – that this was "adversarial behavior" – was dishonest. FB in August had no policy against QAnon so there was no need for adversarial behavior. It was still promoting the movement. https://twitter.com/juliacarriew/status/1293972070909358080

Nobody who reports on this shit wanted to be right. But every executive at Facebook and Twitter and YouTube should be very clear on something right now: you were warned.