Zuckerberg blames 'operational mistake' for not shutting down militia event
The same night as the event, a gunman killed two people, despite the militia page violating Facebook's policies.
KENOSHA, Wis. —
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told his employees the company's internal system designed to flag certain pages and content failed to identify and remove an event connected to a deadly shooting in Kenosha.
Administrators for a militia group, Kenosha Guard, posted an Aug. 25 event calling for "patriots" to take up arms and defend Kenosha from "evil thugs."
Some users responded with open threats of violence.
"I fully plan to kill looters and rioters tonight," one person wrote.
"Anyone committing arson should be shot on site," another added.
Concerned users reported the page, but Facebook did not take it down.
"The page violated our policies and there have been a bunch of media reports asking why this page and event weren't removed sooner, especially when, in this case, a bunch of people did report the page. The reason for this -- it was largely an operational mistake," Zuckerberg said in the video to employees.
He said contractors and reviewers, who the initial complaints were supposed to funnel to, did not pick up on the page.
"On second review, doing it more sensitively, the team that is responsible for dangerous organizations recognized that this violated the policies and we took it down," Zuckerberg added.
The same night as Kenosha Guard's posted event, prosecutors said Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two of them.
"We haven't found any evidence that the shooter was following this Kenosha Guard page, was connected to the event or invited to the event in any way," Zuckerberg told employees.
"We are unaware if the armed citizen was answering the Kenosha Guard Militia's call to arms," a message on the Kenosha Guard Facebook Page said after the deadly shooting.
Still, video captured that night shows Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Illinois resident, walking with other armed individuals who were also violating Kenosha's curfew.
While Zuckerberg claimed Facebook eventually took down the Kenosha Guard event, Facebook employees, internally, refuted the claim.
"This is not true. The event was user deleted hours before we disabled the owning page," one employee wrote on an internal messaging board, according to a published report by BuzzFeed News.
The report, titled "How Facebook Failed Kenosha," cited other employees who questioned the company's actions before and after the shooting.
"Our investigation found that while we did remove the Kenosha Guard Page, the Event was removed by the organizer. We apologize for the error," Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois told BuzzFeed
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