The day after Democrats swept the midterms, Facebook posts called for armed conflict against Muslims and socialists. One caption read, “Vote from the rooftops,” a phrase researchers say functions in right-wing subculture as a euphemism for taking up arms if voting fails.
The Los Angeles Times reported that other posts warned of civil war and made threats against Muslims and social democrats. Separately, the newspaper reported that threats against candidates running for office jumped fivefold on X in the runup to the midterms. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which analyzed replies to posts from ten candidates in battleground races from Michigan to Texas, found hundreds of replies calling for violence.
A Michigan Senator-Elect Becomes a Target
Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed was among those targeted in an Islamophobic campaign, the Los Angeles Times reported. One Facebook post aimed at him read, “I got a feeling that Abdul El Sayid won’t be around too long,” according to the newspaper.
Research Group Ties Spike to Meta Policy Shift
The reported posts came amid a broader debate over Meta’s enforcement policies, though the findings described here do not establish that a policy change caused the posts. The Center for Countering Digital Hate said Meta announced changes on January 7, 2025, affecting enforcement of rules on violence and incitement, hateful conduct, and bullying and harassment. CCDH researchers analyzed nearly 8 million Facebook comments directed at members of Congress from both parties and found abusive comments rose from 24,000 in the six months before the change to 78,000 in the six months after. Meta’s January announcement said it would rely on user reports before acting on less-severe policy violations, focus automated systems on illegal and high-severity violations, end its U.S. third-party fact-checking program, and move toward a Community Notes program.
In CCDH’s breakdown, violent threats rose from 1,800 to 7,600, hateful comments from 6,900 to 30,000, and harassment from 15,700 to 39,900 across the periods it compared. Comments targeting President Donald Trump with violence or incitement to violence also doubled during that same period, according to CCDH. The organization’s chief executive, Imran Ahmed, said the findings point to platforms’ safeguards failing to proactively remove content that contributes to the country’s increasingly violent political culture, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Meta Pushes Back on the Numbers
Meta disputes that its platforms have gotten more hateful overall. A Meta spokesperson told the newspaper that the prevalence of hateful conduct did not increase throughout 2025 and said the company removed content it found to violate its policies. The company has framed its approach to less-severe violations as a way to reduce censorship.
What Changed, and What Researchers Have Seen Before
UC Davis communication professor Magdalena Wojcieszak told the Los Angeles Times that problematic content on Meta’s platforms increased after the company rolled back its fact-checking and anti-hate speech policies. Her earlier research found that stricter Meta moderation before the 2020 election reduced misinformation exposure by 72%, but she noted that reducing exposure alone did not alter political attitudes or diminish polarization. Wojcieszak has said lasting change would require regulation and penalties for platforms that allow hate to spread.
Instagram's enforcement record has drawn separate scrutiny. The Los Angeles Times cited an April study finding Instagram failed to remove 93% of flagged hateful and extremist content from white supremacist and Nazi accounts. A 2026 report from the Anti-Defamation League similarly found Instagram removed just 7% of hateful and extremist content reported by its researchers.
Election Officials Have Faced This Before
The targeting of public figures around elections is not new. Research published in Frontiers in Political Science found that in a 2022 survey, 17% of local election officials polled said they had been threatened because of their job, and 37% of those threatened said they received the threats through social media. A separate study of 2020 election-related social media conversation cited in the same research found hostile topics made up about a quarter of discussion before the election, rising to about 60% afterward, with hostility coming from both left- and right-wing partisans.
A Separate Michigan Election Episode
The Facebook posts targeting El-Sayed are distinct from earlier efforts to challenge election results. Michigan Advance reported that Attorney General Dana Nessel recalled President Trump pressuring Republican members of Wayne County’s Board of Canvassers in 2020 to reject election results; that episode did not involve the posts described here.
CCDH’s Ahmed said people want transparency and accountability, and that platforms should be liable for the real-world harm they cause, according to the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper reported that Democrats’ midterm victory may set the stage for tougher tech and platform regulation, but its reporting did not detail any legislation or regulatory action.
