Feds are tracking Americans’ social media to identify dangerous conspiracies. Critics worry for civil liberties.

Since 2018, at least three white supremacist mass shooters in America have referred to the “Great Replacement” theory, a conspiracy claim that white people are being replaced in the U.S. and elsewhere by immigrants of color.

That’s the narrative Robert Bowers alluded to on social media before killing 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. Patrick Crusius, who killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, less than a year later, was inspired by the racist trope. So was John Earnest, who killed one person and injured three others in a shooting in Poway, California.

Had federal law enforcement agencies known this conspiracy theory was spreading fast on social media, they might have been better able to prepare for these attacks, and perhaps even stave them off.

At least, that’s the argument made by senior Department of Homeland Security officials who outlined a new effort to analyze public social media posts in an effort to better understand extremist narratives and movements.

The new effort, which draws from research conducted by nonprofits, academia and the department itself, aims to identify narratives and campaigns that could lead to domestic terrorist attacks or violent incidents like the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Officials stressed that the goal is not to monitor specific individuals or chill free speech, but rather to build an early warning system for dangerous events.

More