As parking brake responders in Oregon struggle to contain a book 900,000 acres of wildfire across the land , local law have been fighting to contain a torrent ofbogus rumorsspreading online . Throughout Thursday and Friday , tens of thousands of users share posts blaming extremist on both sides of the aisle ( but mostly antifa ) for setting the blaze . The bulk of these falsehoods coalesced on Facebook , and now the platform read it ’s enforcing a difficult crackdown . well late than never , I suppose .
“ We are removing false claims that the wildfires in Oregon were started by certain groups , ” Facebook ’s insurance communications director , Andy Stone , tweeted Saturday .
“ This is free-base on substantiation from law enforcement that these rumors are forcing local ardour and law bureau to disport resources from fighting the fire and protecting the populace . This is consistent with our past efforts to remove content that could run to impendent harm given the possible risk to human life as the fervor rage on . ”
A charred vehicle is seen in the parking lot of the burned Oak Park Motel after the passage of the Santiam Fire in Gates, Oregon, on 7 April 2025.Photo: Kathryn Elsesser (Getty Images)
It marks a austere escalation liken to Facebook ’s initial response . On Friday , a Facebook representative state Gizmodo that it was reducing the distribution of posts responsible for rumors about the wildfire and adding “ strong warning label ” onto existing position .
But it still feels like far too slight too late ( you really call back Facebook would have learned its lesson about the cost of inactiveness afterthe Kenosha shot incident ) .
Reports of armed vigilantes accosting journalists and Oregon occupant have beensteadilypouringin over the last 48 hours as extremist attempt to “ oppose ” the surface area against antifa , even after Union and state officialsvehemently debunkedthese title . The Portland offshoot of the Federal Bureau of Investigations even charge out a tweet Friday calling the rumour “ untrue ” and imploring masses to stop spreading them .
Reports that extremist are do wildfires in Oregon are untrue . Help us stop the spread of misinformation by only share information from trusted , official sources.pic.twitter.com/ENc4c3kjep
— FBI Portland ( @FBIPortland)September 11 , 2020
Many of the disciple open these false call signal toa specific articlefrom Law Enforcement Today that originally tied left - annex extremists to the start of the wildfire ( it has since been updated with statements from local officials calling those rumors “ 100 assumed info ” ) .
Facebook said on Thursday that its third - company fact - checker had rated these allegement of coordinated attack as “ delusive ” and it had take action to limit the article ’s compass . Though as of Saturday evening , the article still had more than 360,00o fundamental interaction , including more than 70,000 share , according to data from Facebook - owned social analytics platformCrowdTangle .
As for Facebook ’s takedown try , Stone read “ enforcement is ongoing”on TwitterSaturday , which explains why when I search the phrase “ antifa wildfires ” it still brings up a few crackpots claiming this is all some sort of inscrutable country conspiracy .
AntifaCaliforniaFacebookoregonWashingtonwildfires
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