Violent Threats on Facebook Quadruple Against U.S. Congressmen After Meta Cuts Back on Enforcement
After Meta announced it was scaling back use of its automated systems to enforce rules about abusive or violent language on Facebook, abusive comments against members of Congress tripled and violent threats quadrupled, according to a report published 9 June by The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The center focuses on halting the spread of online harms and dangerous content through research, public campaigns, and policy advocacy.
In January 2025, Meta rolled back its automated systems that identified and removed violent threats, hate, and harassment on its platforms, with the pithy slogan, “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes.” It was a markedly different approach from 2019, when Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta’s rules against intimidation and harassment would protect speech, preventing users from being frightened into self-censorship or silence, according to the CCDH's report, Safety Off: How threats and abuse surged following Meta’s policy changes.
The three areas where Meta scaled back its proactive enforcement were in violence and incitement, hateful conduct, and bullying and harassment.
The CCDH report analyzed nearly 8 million comments on Facebook that were directed at members of the U.S. Congress.
The analysis determined that overall abusive comments tripled, going from 24,000 in the six months before January 2025 to 78,000 during the six months after Meta’s policy changes. Violent threats quadrupled from 1,800 to 7,600. Violent comments called for the murder, assault, rape, or general death of politicians. Hateful conduct also quadrupled, with comments targeting politicians with racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs, and harmful stereotypes concerning the politician’s race, religion, or other characteristics.
Bullying and harassment doubled in the six months since January 2025. Women were often subjected to gendered slurs and sexualized commentary.
A minority of commenters tried to doxx politicians, either publishing home addresses or phone numbers or asking others to do so.
The research found that along with an increased abuse directed at members of Congress, threats against U.S. President Donald Trump had doubled within the same timeframe, from 800 to 1,900 posted on Facebook.
“Comments in this category included many explicit calls to kill Trump, references to the Pennsylvania assassination attempt that incite violence, and calls to target Trump at the White House or his residence in Mar-a-Lago,” the report said.
“According to the U.S. Capitol Police, threats against members of Congress have reached historic levels in recent years, while election officials, school board members, and lawmakers across the country have reported escalating intimidation and harassment,” the CCDH noted.
Lawmakers are also trying to quietly pivot from direct confrontations, in turn becoming less easily accessible to the public and their constituency.
“Representatives admit, in private, that the fear of being targeted now shapes how they vote,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO for the center, in the report.
