A Kenosha Militia Facebook Event Asking Attendees To Bring Weapons Was Reported 455 Times. Moderators Said It Didn’t Violate Any Rules.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the reason the militia page and an associated event remained online after a shooting that killed two people was due to “an operational mistake.”
By Ryan Mac
Posted on August 28, 2020, at 6:45 p.m. ET
In a companywide meeting on Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a militia page advocating for followers to bring weapons to an upcoming protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, remained on the platform because of “an operational mistake.” The page and an associated event inspired widespread criticism of the company after a 17-year-old suspect allegedly shot and killed two protesters Tuesday night.
The event associated with the Kenosha Guard page, however, was flagged to Facebook at least 455 times after its creation, according to an internal report viewed by BuzzFeed News, and had been cleared by four moderators, all of whom deemed it “non-violating.” The page and event were eventually removed from the platform on Wednesday — several hours after the shooting.
“To put that number into perspective, it made up 66% of all event reports that day.”
“To put that number into perspective, it made up 66% of all event reports that day,” one Facebook worker wrote in the internal “Violence and Incitement Working Group” to illustrate the number of complaints the company had received about the event.
BuzzFeed News could not verify the content on the militia page or its associated event because they had been removed from the platform. A previous story from the Verge noted that the page had issued a “call to arms” and hosted a number of commenters advocating for violence in Kenosha following the police shooting of 29-year-old Black man Jacob Blake.
A Facebook spokesperson declined to comment.
The internal report seen by BuzzFeed News reveals the extent to which concerned Facebook users went to warn the company of a group calling for public violence, and how the company failed to act. “The event is highly unusual in retrospect,” reads the report, which notes that the next highest event for the day had been flagged 18 times by users compared to the 455 times of the Kenosha Guard event.
After militia gathered in Kenosha on Tuesday night, a 17-year-old with a rifle allegedly killed two protesters. Facebook has maintained that the suspect, whose Facebook and Instagram profiles were taken down after the incident, had no direct connection with the Kenosha Guard page or event.
During Facebook’s Thursday all-hands meeting, Zuckerberg said that the images from Wisconsin were “painful and really discouraging,” before acknowledging that the company had made a mistake in not taking the Kenosha Guard page and event down sooner. The page had violated Facebook’s new rules introduced last week that labeled militia and QAnon groups as “Dangerous Individuals and Organizations” for their celebrations of violence.
“At what point do we take responsibility for enabling hate filled bile to spread across our services?”
The company did not catch the page despite user reports, Zuckerberg said, because the complaints had been sent to content moderation contractors who were not versed in “how certain militias” operate. “On second review, doing it more sensitively, the team that was responsible for dangerous organizations recognized that this violated the policies and we took it down.”
During the talk, Facebook employees hammered Zuckerberg for continuing to allow the spread of hatred on the platform.
One Facebook user received this response after trying to report the Kenosha Guard Facebook page noting that it did not “go against one of our specific Community Standards.”
“At what point do we take responsibility for enabling hate filled bile to spread across our services?” wrote one employee. “[A]nti semitism, conspiracy, and white supremacy reeks across our services.”
The internal report seen by BuzzFeed News sheds more light on Facebook’s failure.
“Organizers… advocated for attendees to bring weapons to an event in the event description,” the internal report reads. “There are multiple news articles about our delay in taking down the event.”
One Facebook user who flagged the Kenosha Guard page “for a credible threat of violence” was told “it doesn’t go against one of our specific Community Standards,” according to a screenshot they sent to BuzzFeed News.
In addition to the four manual reviews that determined the Kenosha Guard page to be non-violative, the Facebook report also noted a number of reviews that “were handled by automation” had reached the same conclusion. As part of a proposed change, the Facebook employee writing the report said that the company should monitor spikes in feedback reports for events and “trigger investigation immediately given this has proved to be a good signal for imminent harm.”
The report seems to acknowledge that Facebook was late to act.
“This post provides more details around what happened and changes we are making to detect and investigate similar events sooner,” the worker wrote. “This is a sobering reminder of the importance of the work we do, especially during this charged period.”

tech CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the reason the militia page and an associated event remained online after a shooting that killed two people was due to “an operational mistake.” By Ryan Mac Ryan Mac BuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on August 28, 2020, at 6:45 p.m. ET In a companywide…
Recent Posts
- The GSA is shutting down its EV chargers, calling them ‘not mission critical’
- Lenovo is going all out with yet another funky laptop design: this time, it’s a business notebook with a foldable OLED screen
- Elon Musk’s first month of destroying America will cost us decades
- The first iOS 18.4 developer beta is here, with support for Priority Notifications
- Fortnite’s new season leans heavily on heist mechanics
Archives
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- September 2018
- October 2017
- December 2011
- August 2010