Meta on Tuesday removed a Facebook group that was used to share information about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago after the Department of Justice requested it be taken it down.
The Facebook group was removed by the company “following outreach” by the Department of Justice, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post. The page was used “to dox and target” immigration agents in Chicago, she added.
The Facebook group, called ICE Sighting-Chicagoland, had more than 80,000 members before it was removed. Meta spokesman Francis Brennan confirmed on Wednesday that the page was taken down for “violating our policies against coordinated harm,” without providing further details.
Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, was the latest tech giant to remove content in response to government pressure. Last week, Apple and Google removed apps used to track immigration agents from their app stores. That included ICEBlock, a free app with hundreds of thousands of users, which let people anonymously share the locations of ICE agents within a five-mile radius.
As President Trump has sent ICE agents to conduct raids in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., residents have also relied on Facebook groups to share information on the agents’ whereabouts. The groups typically have a few thousand members with dozens of posts a day, most of which include photos of immigration agents with their live locations.
Eli Tan covers the technology industry for The Times from San Francisco.
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