Meta has begun blocking links to the ICE List, a website that compiles information about incidents involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents and lists the names of thousands of its employees. It seems the latter detail is what prompted Meta to take action in the move that was first reported wired.
ICE List is a crowdsourced wiki that describes itself as “an independently maintained public documentation project focused on immigration-enforcement activity” in the US. Its website states, “Its purpose is to record, organize, and preserve verifiable information about enforcement operations, agents, facilities, vehicles, and related incidents that would otherwise remain fragmented, difficult to access, or undocumented.”
Along with notable incidents, the website also lists the names of individual agents associated with ICE, CBP, and other DHS agencies. according to wiredThe website’s creators said most of the information came from “leaks”, although it appeared to be largely based on public LinkedIn profiles. As wired notes:
The site went viral earlier this month when it claimed to have uploaded a leaked list of 4,500 DHS employees to its site, but a WIRED analysis found that the list relied heavily on information employees shared publicly about themselves on sites like LinkedIn.
Links to the ICE list have been spreading widely for several weeks, including on Meta’s platforms. There are numerous links to the website on the threads, some of which are several weeks old. However, now, clicking on an already shared link instead gives a message that the link cannot be opened. Users who try to share new links in threads or on Facebook also see error messages. “Posts that appear to be spam are blocked on Facebook in accordance with our Community Guidelines and cannot be edited,” the notice said.
When contacted for comment, a Meta spokesperson pointed to the company’s privacy policy prohibiting the disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII). The company did not say why it decided to begin blocking the website after several weeks, or whether it considered it a violation of its rules against doxxing public LinkedIn profiles.
However, this is not the first time that Meta has chosen to remove posts from users that track information about ICE actions. The social network previously removed a Facebook group that tracked ICE sightings in Chicago after pressure from the Justice Department.
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