Politically, things in the US are… charged, to say the least, and the impact of misinformation efforts across social media platforms is more in the spotlight than it ever has been before. However, one prominent roleplay group in Fallout 76 ran afoul of the efforts by Facebook to stop these digital groups with a brief banning of several of their members on the platform along with the guild’s Facebook Group page.
The Free States Militia is one of the most prominent roleplay groups in the game, and its Facebook page had a reported two years’ worth of updates, pictures, stories, and other sentimental pieces of content. All of that disappeared one day out of the blue with no advance warning from Facebook, along with the personal accounts of several of the Free States’ members.
The prevailing assumption is that the group having the word “militia” in its name tripped a flag in Facebook’s Group review process, which is in place to halt what Facebook calls “organizations and movements that have demonstrated significant risks to public safety,” including QAnon, groups that support violent acts against protestors, and US-based militia organizations.
Facebook has since reinstated both the Free States Militia’s Facebook page as well as the personal accounts of everyone who was banned, issuing an apology for the mistake. “We apologize for removing the Fallout 76 group in error and have since restored the Group and admin accounts,” reads a statement from a company spokesperson.
