Meta wiped ICE Sighting Chicagoland from Facebook last week. The group was used to warn users of ICE raids in the area and had nearly 80,000 members.
This comes just a week after Apple and Google removed all ICE-related apps, including ICEBlock, from their stores.
Both erasures followed public pressure from the Trump regime on Fox News and X, as well as venomous diatribes from extremist-influencer Laura Loomer. Although the tech companies claim it had nothing to do with the DOJ, pointing instead to terms of service violations, and denying they caved to any government coercion.
Whether they jumped or were pushed depends on who you ask. But one thing is certain: There was no court order or legal demand and the Constitution doesn’t require companies to erase lawful speech simply because officials want it gone.
“Apple, Google, and Meta were under no obligation to remove these apps,” says Alex Abdo, litigation director at Columbia Knight First Amendment Institute. “If they did it because the DOJ threatened them, even implicitly, that’s a First Amendment violation. The government shouldn’t be able to behave like a mob boss in going after protected speech.”