Facebook turns over messages of alleged Capitol rioters to FBI

Facebook has turned users' private messages over to the FBI. The messages are from accounts believed to have been involved in the planning of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. It appears that the Capitol Hill riot activities were at least partially planned on Facebook though the platform has been consistently deflecting that charge.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg had said that the blame for the planning of the riot fell on the shoulders of conservative-leaning social media sites, like Parler and Gab. It was as a result of these suppositions that Apple and Google banned Parler from their app stores, and Amazon removed the site from their servers.

Sandberg said on Jan. 11, "I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate, don't have our standards and don't have our transparency." Six days after the events of Jan. 6, Sandberg attempted to blame other platforms when it was her own that had been unable to prevent the riot planning.

Senator Mark Warren (D-VA) had called on social media companies to archive the data from those accounts that were believed to have been party to the riot, and law enforcement doubled the ask, wanting to study that information before users had a chance to delete it, according to Forbes.

Facebook's involvement was revealed in a criminal complaint that was filed in New York against one of the alleged participants, Christopher M. Kelly. There had been a search warrant used to gain access to his Facebook account. That account had posts and images about Kelly's involvement in the Capitol Hill riot, including photos of him engaged in the illegal activity.

The FBI also wanted his private messages, and Facebook obliged. It was here that correspondence between Kelly and others who were involved in the Jan. 6 riot were revealed. In response to a message advising him to stay safe and out of harm's way, Kelly wrote "I'll be with ex-NYPD and some Proud Boys. This will be the most historic event of my life."

According to Sandberg, Facebook has removed Proud Boys and QAnon affiliated accounts and content, and also banned any content that used the phrase "Stop the Steal." Sandberg said that Facebook's enforcement was "never perfect."

A few days after the riot, Kelly posted photos of himself at the scene of the crime, saying "That's me," noting that his "brother took it." Additional private messages were turned over to the FBI by Facebook, including those that gave an account of his and police activities on that day.

Despite the mounting evidence that larger, more mainstream social media sites like Facebook played a role in allowing users to organize illegal riot activities on Jan. 6 in Washington, DC, as well as elsewhere around the country, Parler is the social media app that has come under fire.

The Program on Extremism at the George Washington University revealed that in 78 percent of the 92 criminal complaints filed with the Justice Department in relation to the riot on Jan. 6, social media played a role.

Parler, a much smaller app, only came to prominence as Facebook and Twitter began banning notable conservative accounts, such as that of President Trump. His pages were locked on Facebook, and his accounts banned from Twitter. It was only after Trump joined Parler that the app was removed app stores and from Amazon servers.

Even as Parler was coming under fire, independent journalist Glenn Greenwald reported that it was the major social media platforms of Twitter and Facebook that hosted much of the planning by Capitol Hill rioters.

"Of the first 13 people arrested by the FBI in connection with the event at the Capitol, a total of zero were active users of Parler. The overwhelming amount of planning for that event, the overwhelming amount of advocacy for people to go there and to breach the Capitol was done on Facebook, and on YouTube, and on Twitter," Greenwald asserted.

Yet Rep. Carolyn Maloney sent letter to FBI director Christopher Wray asking for an investigation into deplatformed social media platform Parler. Her charge is that they are a haven for domestic terrorism and were involved in the Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6. She did not ask for an investigation into Facebook.