Meta has started blocking its users from sharing links to ICE List, a website that has compiled the names of what it claims are Department of Homeland Security employees, a project the creators say is designed to hold those employees accountable.
Dominick Skinner, the creator of ICE List, tells WIRED that links to the website have been shared without issue on Meta’s platforms for more than six months.
“I think it’s no surprise that a company run by a man who sat behind Trump at his inauguration, and donated to the destruction of the White House, has taken a stance that helps ICE agents retain anonymity,” says Skinner.
As agents from Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which are under DHS, have continued to terrorize immigrant communities and kill US citizens, activists have sought to track and record their activity online in a bid to hold them accountable. But as well as threatening to prosecute those they claim are “doxing” ICE agents, the Trump administration has pressured tech companies to block any efforts at crowdsourcing the location and activities of those agents.
ICE List has been operating since last June. Skinner says it is run by a core team of five people, including him, as well as hundreds of anonymous volunteers who share information about ICE agents operating in cities across the US.
The site went viral earlier this month when it claimed to have uploaded a leaked list of 4,500 DHS employees to its site, but a WIRED analysis found that the list relied heavily on information the employees shared publicly about themselves on sites such as LinkedIn.
Skinner said volunteers he works with across the US first reported problems with posting links on Meta’s platforms on Monday night.
On Tuesday morning, WIRED verified that posting links to the site was blocked on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. WIRED also confirmed that links can still be sent on WhatsApp, another Meta-owned product.
While all the social media platforms where the link is blocked are owned by Meta, the reasons users are given for their inability to link to the ICE List website vary.
When WIRED attempted to post a link on Facebook, we received a message that read: “Posts that look like spam according to our Community Guidelines are blocked on Facebook and can’t be edited.” Hours later, however, that message was updated to read: “Your content couldn’t be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards.” The message linked to Meta’s Community Standards homepage rather than a specific part of those rules.
Meanwhile on Threads, the link instantly disappeared when pasted into a new post, with a notice simply saying: “Link not allowed.”
On Instagram, a notice appearing after an attempt to post a Story read: “We restrict certain activity to protect our community. Let us know if you think we made a mistake.”
When asked about the block, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone directed WIRED to the company’s policy about sharing personally identifiable information. When WIRED pointed out that the information on the ICE List did not appear to contain any of the information listed on Meta’s policy, he said it was in relation to the policy prohibiting “content asking for personally identifiable information of others.”
In response, Skinner pointed out that ICE List has been asking for tips about the identities of ICE agents for six months.
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