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Facebook banned the accounts and pages associated with the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group whose members assaulted protesters in New York earlier in October.
On Tuesday, Twitter users began reporting that Facebook was deleting groups and accounts (both personal and public) related to members of the organization, involved in cases of political violence in the United States.
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the company was banning The Proud Boys and founder Gavin McInnes from Facebook and Instagram, recalling Facebook's rules against hate groups.
The takedowns come after Proud Boys' members allegedly attacked protesters following an event in New York on October 12. Members of the group reportedly shouted homophobic insults as they beat and kicked the demonstrators. Since then, at least five Proud Boys have been arrested.
Facebook's move would deprive the extremist organization of its main recruiting and advertising channel – but this only comes a few months after other tech companies took action against the group.
Proud Boys was founded by Gavin McInnes, also known as co-founder of the Vice Press Organization, and describes his members as "western chauvinists". The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that monitors extremism, refers to it as a group of hate. One of the Proud Boys' initiation rites involves physical violence against leftist antifascists.
Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of the 2017 "Unite the Right" white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, allegedly resulting in the death of a protester, reportedly was a member of the Proud Boys.
In a statement, a Facebook spokesman said: "Our team continues to study trends in hate speech and organized hate speech and works with partners to better understand hate organizations as they go along. As we evolve, we ban these organizations and individuals from our platforms and also remove all support when we become aware of them.
"We will continue to review content, pages and people who break our rules, take action against hate speech and hate organizations to contribute to the safety of our community."
The SPLC had already explained how the organization was using Facebook as a recruitment tool, creating private groups to "control" potential members. "While Twitter has been criticized for checking the accounts of Proud Boys, it's Facebook that seems to provide the group's recruitment mechanism," he writes.
At the time of writing these lines, some important groups of Proud Boys, including one with 20,000 members, are offline and Facebook is showing users the message "This page is not available", while others, including McInnes' s page, are still available.
Facebook has fallen behind its peers in the removal of The Proud Boys; BuzzFeed News then banned the creation of Twitter and its founder last August.
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