Facebook labeled users as interested in militias and allowed advertisers to target them despite banning such groups last year in the run-up to the November presidential election, BuzzFeed News reports. In late 2020, the social network promised to axe pages “tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations, and QAnon.” Researchers found, however, that Facebook continued to classify users as interested in “militia” and “resistance movement” in its breakdown of categories that advertisers could target. A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, “We removed this targeting term last summer and are working to understand why it could appear in Ad Preferences.”
