Summary

The FBI is investigating a surge of anonymous racist and offensive text messages targeting Latino, Black, and LGBTQ communities following last week’s election.

Messages have included threats of deportation, re-education camps, or being forced into plantation labor.

While no violence has resulted, the texts, sent via services like TextNow, have prompted collaboration between the FBI, DOJ Civil Rights Division, and local authorities.

Advocacy groups like LULAC and the NAACP condemned the harassment, citing it as a troubling resurgence of hate rhetoric emboldened by recent political developments.

  • rouxdoo@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Another poster suggested a Russian disinformation campaign, I would suggest a more home-grown hate faction that was grown from the poll-watcher contingent. They culled and sifted lists of people that were most likely to “spoil the vote” and had nothing else to do do but harass people.

    • AtHeartEngineer@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Ya I did, it probably is, thanks for bringing this up. We need to get the word out! Fuck misinformation!

  • Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    “Some recipients reported being told they were selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp,” the agency said.

    How is anyone supposed to believe this? Oh wait, I remember. Because it was voted for.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      It’s exactly that threat that is why we are emigrating. If my daughter were marched into a conversion therapy camp, I would never forgive myself.

    • whithom@discuss.online
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      8 hours ago

      Hey, we get what we voted for. Our only hope is that people stand up to them. But I won’t hold my breath.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Just so everyone is absolutely clear, AT&t, Verizon, etc, are 1000%

    Was not the sale of that information to unscrupulous parties, it was a lack of proper configurations and security measures to prevent that information from leaking.