‘I don’t give no [expletive] about this s**t. I upload stolen [expletive] 365 a year. This ain’t [expletive] first time I did this…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Although Facebook has been reluctant to publicly join sites like Twitter and Snapchat in censoring President Donald Trump, it has continued to suppress other mostly right-wing voices during recent race riots.
But the company’s moral posturing appears, yet again, to be a one-way street.
After flagging for removal legal activity it disagreed with, Facebook revealed its double-standard by ignoring those who illegally sought to sell stolen merchandise, according to CBS Chicago.
The CBS affiliate said it had uncovered several photos and videos on the social-media site that showed people openly discussing the sale of looted goods.
“I don’t give no [expletive] about this s**t,” says a woman in one of the videos it reviewed. “I upload stolen [expletive] 365 a year. This ain’t [expletive] first time I did this.”
Another video, broadcast via Facebook Live on Sunday, May 31, documented looters at a local strip mall as they filled a van to the brim with contraband.
CBS Chicago said it referred the videos to Chicago police, who are investigating all leads alongside the FBI.
“The FBI is currently reviewing all tips to help us identify actors who are actively instigating violence in the wake of George Floyd’s death,” an FBI special agent said in a statement to CBS.
Federal investigators encourage anyone who witnesses unlawful activity, such as theft, vandalism or violence, to submit any photos, videos or other information to fbi.gov/violence.
“The continued violence & destruction of property nationwide interferes with the rights & safety of First Amendment-protected peaceful demonstrators,” said the FBI statement.
Meanwhile, Facebook last week claimed to have waged its own ideologically-driven counter-terrorism operation by deplatforming some 200 accounts linked to right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and American Guard, which it labeled as white supremacists.
Facebook accused them of threatening to escalate, rather than de-escalate the lawlessness.
“We saw that these groups were planning to rally supporters and members to physically go to the protests and in some cases were preparing to go with weapons,” Brian Fishman, Facebook’s director of counter-terrorism and dangerous organizations policy, breathlessly told the Associated Press.
The groups have garnered a name for themselves by engaging in counter-demonstrations against leftist radical organizations like Antifa.
Trump has endorsed naming Antifa as an official terrorist organization following its role in the recent violence, which has killed more than a dozen innocent victims nationwide.
Undercover videos have shown Antifa-linked activists conducting training sessions in how to resist police and engage in hand-to-hand-combat techniques from liver-punching to eyeball-gouging.
However, many mainstream media outlets have celebrated the rioters and vilified the determent effort. Some are incredulously denying the involvement of Antifa and other radical anarchist groups, despite confirmation from the FBI and law enforcement.
“There have been ‘multiple instances’ in which people who have been arrested have identified themselves to law enforcement as members of antifa,” the Associated Press reported last week, citing a senior Justice Department official who could not elaborate about ongoing investigations.
In response, anti-crime vigilante groups have patrolled cities like Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Crown Point, Indiana, respecting and upholding local laws peacefully with no known reports of having instigated any incidents.
“We came here as a show of force and as a deterrent to prevent that from happening,” said Trevor Treller, a participant in the Idaho patrol.
“Nobody here wants a confrontation,” he said. “And everyone here is wiling to engage in one if it ever should it come to that, or need to be—but nobody wants it, and everyone prays it will never happen.”
Liberty Headlines reached out to Facebook for comment and will update with any response.