Facebook has taken down pages for Patriot Prayer as well as the account of its leader, Joey Gibson. Gibson said that there were other members of the group whose accounts were also taken down, according to The Oregonian.
Chandler Pappas and his friend Aaron Danielson, who was murdered by an avowed member of Antifa in Portland, Ore. on Aug. 29, both wore Patriot Prayer hats. Pappas wore his during an interview with Tucker Carlson yesterday.
It was the Patriot Prayer hat, in part, that identified Danielson as a Trump supporter to his killer, Michael Reinoehl. Reinoehl reportedly said "we got a couple right here, pull it out," before shooting Danielson. Reinoehl claimed to be "100 percent Antifa" and had a BLM tattoo on his neck.
The man who was shot and killed in Portland was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer. Here are Facebook’s guidelines that it referenced as a rationale for taking down the pages. https://t.co/ntP0vmh1t8
— Davey Alba (@daveyalba) September 4, 2020
Reinoehl fled the scene of the crime after he fatally shot Danielson and was located near Olympia, Wash., last night. Law enforcement sought to arrest him in connection with Danielson's murder, but Reinoehl was killed after he allegedly pulled a rifle on officers.
Facebook said that they would be "taking action against Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounted tied to offline anarchist groups that support violent acts amidst protests, US-based militia organizations and QAnon."
They noted that they had already pulled many paged that were either calling for violence or advocating for civil unrest. But they go on to say that intentions toward violence and mayhem are not the only reasons that they would have to pull pages from their platform.
"[W]e have seen growing movements that, while not directly organizing violence, have celebrated violent acts, shown that they have weapons and suggest they will use them, or have individual followers with patterns of violent behavior," they wrote.
Because of this, they expanded their "Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy to address organizations and movements that have demonstrated significant risks to public safety but do not meet the rigorous criteria to be designated as a dangerous organization and banned from having any presence on our platform."
Facebook admins must have believed that Danielson, who was a member of Patriot Prayer, was a bigger threat to society than the man who killed him, who was a member of Antifa, as many Antifa pages are alive and well on Facebook.
Plenty of Antifa pages on Facebook still up. pic.twitter.com/DAOeYNqamE
— libby emmons (@libbyemmons) September 4, 2020
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