Blue Igloo gone: Did Facebook delete page tied to armed marches in Raleigh?
A Facebook page involved in organizing armed marches in Raleigh this spring has vanished from public view, likely as part of a purge of extremist material from the social-media site.
Facebook said in a blog post Tuesday that it had removed 220 Facebook accounts, 95 Instagram accounts, 28 pages and 106 groups that are part of a “violent US-based anti-government network” associated with the boogaloo movement, a loose amalgam of Libertarians, anarchists and others who say they oppose government tyranny, support unfettered gun rights and expect another civil war.
More than 500 other groups and pages that “hosted similar content” but “were maintained by accounts outside of” the network were also deleted, Facebook said.
Benjamin Ryan Teeter, a 22-year-old from Pender County who was present for at least two marches in Raleigh, said Facebook erased two profiles belonging to him, but he denied that he had acted violently or promoted violence.
“I would actually really love for them to cite a specific example when I have tried to invoke violence against somebody,” Teeter told The News & Observer in an interview Wednesday.
Teeter wasn’t much bothered by Facebook’s move to oust him. The company had been taking down material related to the boogaloo movement for months, so conversation had largely moved to other platforms, he said.
Material related to the boogaloo movement, whose name derives from the 1984 movie sequel “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” has proliferated on Facebook since government officials ordered people to stay at home to help fight the spread of the coronavirus, researchers who study extremist groups say.
Boogaloo’s roots are in the white power movement, but its ideology has become more diffuse as it grows through joke-laden online discourse, with “boogaloo” sometimes replaced with homophones like “blue igloo” or “blue luau.”
Adherents have sometimes shown up to protests in Hawaiian shirts. Others wear the military-style gear favored by the militia movement, some of whose members have gravitated to boogaloo for updated branding, said Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University who studies extremist networks.
The movement also been linked to violence. Adherents have been charged with killing a security officer at a federal courthouse in Oakland, California, plotting to use explosives at Las Vegas protest against police brutality and threatening to ambush a police officer in Texas.
That’s what pushed Facebook to take stronger action, the company said in its Tuesday blog post. It noted the movement uses shifting terminology and symbols, and is divided on many issues, including racism, anti-Semitism and whether to instigate violence or react when it occurs.
Facebook said it relies on researchers to help it distinguish posts and people promoting violence from less harmful behavior. In the previous two months, the company said, it had taken down more than 800 boogaloo-related posts for violating the site’s violence and incitement policy and had removed pages and groups referencing the movement from the recommendations displayed to Facebook users.
‘Blue Igloo’ in Raleigh
People associated with the movement gathered in Raleigh at least three times this spring.
On May 1, nine men stood in paramilitary garb, some with long guns, near the gate to Oakwood Cemetery. One man held a sign that said, “Still Here, Still Healthy” in protest of executive orders that closed businesses to slow the spread of COVID-19, The N&O reported. The group drew the attention of neighbors and police, who told them it was illegal to be armed while protesting or observing a protest in North Carolina.
The event, which took place one day after armed militants stormed the Michigan state Capitol, was organized through a Facebook page called Blue Igloo in response to the arrest of four protesters affiliated with Reopen NC, a group that sought an end to coronavirus-related business closures, Triad City Beat reported.
“This is a call to arms,” Blue Igloo posted on the “Protect the 1st Amendment” event page, according to the alt-weekly newspaper. “I’m going to need every able-bodied man to pack up your gear and plan for peaceful assembly at this very spot on May 1st. Call your brothers from other states.”
After the gathering at the cemetery, the group walked around downtown Raleigh carrying weapons.
On May 9, about a dozen people, including some who attended the event the week before, again walked around downtown displaying weapons.
One member holding a pipe wrench over his shoulder intimidated a Black family with what they interpreted as a Nazi salute, the N&O reported.
Another member, Steve Wagner, who held the sign the week before, wore two pistols and an anti-tank weapon with a sticker that said “inert,” according to the newspaper. An N&O visual journalist’s photos of the armed men buying Subway sandwiches went viral, prompting the group to give themselves the nickname “Meal Team Six.”
As before, the event was advertised on Facebook through Blue Igloo, which called the action an “opportunity for First and Second Amendment supporters to get together, meet people with commonalities and get some exercise while we’re all wasting away at home,” The N&O reported.
The following Saturday, May 16, boogaloo adherents marched downtown again, this time drawing counter-protesters and more attention from police.
The group of eight, some of whom carried guns, separated after Raleigh police told them armed protests were illegal, the N&O reported. They insisted they weren’t protesting, but rather exercising.
Black Lives Matter protesters have complained that police give white protesters invoking the Second Amendment more leeway than they receive.
And some local politicians have also asked why the armed men were not arrested under the state law that bans bringing weapons to demonstrations.
“This is what a domestic terrorist looks like,” Greg Ford, the chairman of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, wrote on Facebook. “Right here in Wake County.”
In May, Raleigh Police Chief Cassandra Deck-Brown said her department would consider criminal charges related to the armed marches.
More than a month later, none of the people involved has been charged, Lorrin Freeman, the Wake County district attorney, confirmed Wednesday.
Like a game of ‘Whac-a-mole’
The Blue Igloo Facebook page vanished earlier this week, around the time of Facebook’s declared purge, but the N&O could not confirm its disappearance was the result of Facebook action.
Both Squire, the Elon professor, and Teeter, a member of the movement, identified Randall Moore as the page’s administrator. No one responded to a message sent through the Blue Igloo website that linked to the Facebook page, and Moore did not respond to a message relayed through Teeter or voicemails left by the N&O.
The Facebook page has been replaced by a message saying the content is unavailable either because the owner changed who could view it or because it had been deleted.
Regardless of the cause, the end of the Facebook page does not mean the end of the movement, Teeter and Squire agree.
Adherents can easily find each other on other platforms, and Facebook’s approach has meant many of them can continue to use the social network.
“It’s very hard to figure out what they did,” Squire said of Facebook, “especially because some of the people that were removed and groups that were removed in the network were only half removed. So the page remains, but the group is taken down or the group remains, but the page was taken down or the group’s there, but the moderator’s gone.”
She likens the efforts by social networking sites to ban extremist material to a game of “Whac-a-mole.”
Facebook acknowledged the dynamic in its statement: “So long as violent movements operate in the physical world, they will seek to exploit digital platforms. We are stepping up our efforts against this network and know there is still more to do.”
At George Floyd protests across the nation
So-called “boogaloo bois” have recently participated in demonstrations across the country sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.
Whether they are protesting police violence or are capitalizing on the protests to sow chaos is contested.
Moore, the man associated with the Blue Igloo page, showed up at a protest in Raleigh on May 30, according to photographs taken at the event. He wore a green and khaki military-style outfit and stood on the base of a light post recording protesters using a phone.
A few days later in Columbia, South Carolina, a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt was charged with looting, larceny, aggravated breach of the peace and instigating a riot, as well as breaking into a motor vehicle, The State reported. The sheriff said he thought the man was trying to incite civil war.
Others movement adherents have converged at ground zero of the current protest movement: Minneapolis.
Teeter said he is there now with other “boojahideen,” a reference to the Afghan guerrilla fighters that signals movement adherents willing to travel for the cause. He thinks that’s the group that Facebook was targeting.
They are protesting police violence, sometimes bearing weapons, and protecting small businesses against looting at the businesses’ request, Teeter said.
Recently, according to Teeter, several had their Facebook presence zapped.
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Blue Igloo gone: Did Facebook delete page tied to armed marches in Raleigh?."