On Facebook, Terror Is Everywhere

Searches quickly turned up evidence of extremist recruiting in plain sight.

- Jeff Muskus And Julie Alnwick

In the past month, Mark Zuckerberg has boasted to Congress and investors that Facebook Inc.’s artificial intelligence programs are turning the tide against extremism on his site. “One thing that I’m proud of is our AI tools that help us take down ISIS and al- Qaeda-related terror content, with 99 percent of that content being removed before any person flags it to us,” the chief executive said on April’s earnings call. Facebook executives repeated that number onstage at early May’s annual developer conference. But it applies only to posts by those two groups. Many others seem able to recruit more or less as they please from the site’s audience of 2.2 billion.

At least a dozen U.S.-designated terror groups maintain a presence on Facebook, a review by Bloomberg Businessweek shows. That includes Hamas and Hezbollah in the Middle East, Boko Haram in West Africa, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The terror groups are rallying supporters with everything from gruesome photos of death caused by their enemies to quotidian news about social services they offer. Several can be found simply by typing their names into Facebook’s search bar in English or, in some cases, in Arabic or Spanish. Some of the groups proudly link to their Facebook pages on their home websites, too.

“There is no place for terrorists or content that promotes terrorism on Facebook, and we remove it as soon as we become aware of it,” the company said in a statement. “We know we can do more, and we’ve been making major investments.” Facebook appeared to shut down several pages after being asked about them, including those for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades.