Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich urged the United States Department of Justice to investigate Facebook's role in human trafficking and illegal immigration following media reports on the matter.
The Christian Post said Brnovich wrote a letter to United States Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday, October 14, requesting the Department of Justice to "pursue all means" to hold the Big Tech company accountable for its "facilitation of human and sex trafficking," as well as, drug cartels in line with the continuous increase of migration in the southwest border.
Brnovich raised "media reports" he received "detailing how human smugglers and drug cartels were allegedly using Facebook to encourage and instruct its users to engage in illegal activities." He also told Garland that he already wrote to Facebook on the matter and expressed disbelief at the company's response regarding it.
"Our office wrote to Facebook to clarify its policies and procedures for preventing such misuse of its platform. On August 30, 2021, we were surprised to receive an in-depth response from the company...stating that its platform 'allow(s) people to share information about how to enter a country illegally or request information about how to be smuggled'," Brnovich recounted in the letter.
Facebook also defended that they use "automated post scanning systems to identify violations" in their community content policies such as those that encourage human smuggling and drug trafficking.
In the letter sent to Garland, Brnovich called Facebook's enforcement on content moderation for illegal activities as a "paper tiger" since the platform "identifies no mechanism to distinguish between authorized and unauthorized posts."
Brnovich went on to say that Facebook actually promotes it and is a "direct facilitator of it." He then pointed out the need to "investigate Facebook's facilitation of human smuggling at Arizona's southern border and stop its active encouragement and facilitation of illegal entry."
"Facebook's policy of allowing posts promoting human smuggling and illegal entry into the United States to regularly reach its billions of users seriously undermines the rule of law. The company is a direct facilitator, and thus exacerbates, the catastrophe occurring at Arizona's southern border. The people of Arizona and all Border States deserve the due diligence of the federal government in its enforcement of the rule of law," Brnovich underscored.
Early this month, Christianity Daily reported that Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn spearheaded an investigation in the United States Senate on Facebook as part of its Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Product Safety. The intent of the investigation was to identify Facebook's "active role in endangering children online" and was titled "Protecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, and Mental Health Harms."
The investigation was held in line with a report released by The Wall Street Journal that children "are being exposed to safety and privacy issues including data collection, aggressive marketing, and sexual exploitation" through Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram.
In the course of the investigation, Blackburn discovered that Facebook has a "blind eye towards harmful content on their platform" in line with illegal drug trade through the southern border.
Prior to The Wall Street Journal expose on Facebook, we reported in April that human traffickers are actually using the Big Tech platform to deceive migrants into coming to America by giving them false hopes that their application has been accepted. A total of 50 Facebook pages were identified to be used by smugglers and human traffickers for such purposes.
Some smugglers use Facebook to prey on people using President Joe Biden's announcement that welcome migrants. Smugglers post information on pricing and instructions on how to get across the Texas border. Reports on such social media posts have actually reached the United States Department of Homeland Security and have been monitoring it.
