WIRED Politics Lab: Facebook and the “Heritage, not Hate” militia-related groups Three Percenters and the Confederate States III%

Other content and messaging in the group is similar. And despite the fact that Facebook bans paramilitary organizing and deemed the Three Percenters an “armed militia group” on its 2021 Dangerous Individuals and Organizations List, the post and group remained up until WIRED contacted Meta for comment about its existence.

The Confederate States III%, a militia based in Arkansas, was behind an account that was important in determining the direction of politics in Georgia in 2020. Huffman has created a network of Facebook groups and spreads the word about local meetups. His partner is also active, and on a mission to recruit active patriots into the groups. Both Huffman and Demere are key players in the pro-Confederate movement called “Heritage, not Hate”.

Paul told WIRED that she’s been monitoring “hundreds” of militia-related groups and profiles since 2021 and has observed them growing “increasingly emboldened with more serious and coordinated organizing” in the past year.

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The WIRED Politics Lab Podcast: Disinformation, Extremism and the Internet of Things (A Conversation with David Gilbert, Tess Owen, and Leah Feiger)

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Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. David Gilbert: Hey there. I’m David Gilbert, senior reporter on the WIRED Politics team. I wanted to mention that we’re putting together an episode about disinformation before we start the show. Think about it as WIRED’s guide to disinfo, and we need you to be a part of it. What questions do you have about disinfo? We would like to hear it all. We’ll be reading through the mailbox and answering your questions on the show. Please use [email protected] to send your questions. That’s politicslab@wired. And one more thing, if you haven’t checked out our newsletter, please sign up. There’s a link in our show notes. Thanks a lot.

Leah Feiger is a female. And Tess Owen, a WIRED contributor and expert on extremism, disinformation, and politics, and the author of the story we’re about to dig into. I welcome you. You’ve spent weeks studying how the groups organize on Facebook. What did you think when you first started looking into this?