Meta really had no choice. As reported by The Verge, Mark Zuckerberg’s group deleted a Facebook page dedicated to tracking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Chicago.
The announcement was made on X, ex-Twitter, by prosecutor Pam Bondi, on Tuesday, October 14. She accuses the group of being used to track and attack immigration officials. “Following a request from the Department of Justice, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to expose and attack ICE agents in Chicago,” he said.
Pressure from the Ministry of Justice
Meta spokesman Andy Stone confirmed in a statement that the group, which he did not identify, “was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm.”
This decision is not a coincidence. Mark Zuckerberg’s group, which like other technology giants is trying to get closer to Donald Trump, was contacted in this regard by the Department of Justice. The agency appears to have become interested in the issue after Laura Loomber, a far-right influencer, posted about a Facebook group called “ICE Sighting-Chicagoland” that she said “provides information on the locations of ICE raids and ICE agents in the Chicago area.”
Although the name of the deleted group has not been confirmed, the influencer told X that a ministry source told her that the agency had seen her post and contacted Meta about the pages.
While it is impossible to find the page on Facebook, dozens of other groups, some with thousands of members, remained visible on the social network as of Tuesday night, October 14, according to AP News.
Multiple apps removed
Equipped with resources unprecedented in its history, the US immigration police have become the armed wing of Donald Trump’s ultra-firm policy. In recent months, videos of mistakes have multiplied. In the face of some harsh arrests and the implementation of invasive surveillance technologies aimed at migrants, several tools and community groups have emerged to alert the population about the presence of ICE in the region. So many tools removed at the request of the government.
This is the case of “Eyes Up”, an application that archived videos about abuses by the ICE agency. The platform was removed by Apple and Google from their application stores, at the request of the government. “DeICER,” another app dedicated to archiving the activities of ICE-affiliated law enforcement agencies, has also been removed from the App Store.
This is also the case with ICEBlock, an application launched in April that allows its users to report the presence of ICE equipment and exchange information about their location in real time. Pam Bondi claimed that the platform was “designed to endanger ICE agents simply for doing their jobs.”
A statement denied by the creator of the application, Joshua Aaron. “It is clearly false that the application is being used to harm law enforcement,” he told Fox Business. He said most users are turning to these platforms to protect their own safety as President Donald Trump tightens immigration controls across the country.
Source: BFM TV
