Miami's Far-Right Groups Wield Twitter's New Policy Against Anti-Fascist Activists

Last week, Twitter announced a new privacy policy prohibiting photos and media of private persons without their consent, in an effort to prevent users from using the platform "to harass" and "intimidate."

Almost immediately, far-right hate groups began wielding the new safeguard to harass and intimidate leftist activists by coordinating the mass reporting of all posts with photos to lock their foes out of their accounts and stifle their online presence.

"Due to the new privacy policy at Twitter things now unexpectedly work more in our favor as we can take down Antifa faggot doxxing pages more easily. Anyone with a Twitter account should be reporting doxxing posts from the following accounts to deplatform," wrote Tony Hovater, the Ohio-based founder of the neo-Nazi group Traditionalist Workers Party and leader of the anti-Semitic group National Justice Party, in a Telegram message that was widely circulated in other channels.

Horvater's message mentioned leftist Twitter accounts to target, including at least one Miami handle, @MIAagainstFash. Almost every day Miami Against Fascism publishes lengthy Twitter threads listing photos, screenshots, and information on local members of the far-right hate group the Proud Boys and other local right-wing activists who organize anti-vaccine and -mask protests across South Florida.

Backed by the #ProudBoys, neo-Nazi leader Tony Hovater, who once took orders from Matthew Heimbach, known for advocating genocide of all Jews, says that the new @TwitterSafety policy works "more in our favor," and encourages mass reporting of accounts reporting on the far-Right. pic.twitter.com/yyQImUSga8

— It's Going Down (@IGD_News) December 3, 2021

The person behind Miami Against Fascism tells New Times the account received 31 notices to take down content. Twitter temporarily froze the account less than 24 hours after the policy went into effect.

"We knew this would happen. We knew far-right actors would attempt to weaponize the policy to attack anti-fascist researchers and evade accountability. The way the policy is being enforced is not protecting marginalized people — it's doing the opposite," says Diego, who runs the account and spoke to New Times on the condition that his full name not be published for fear of retaliation. "We started in July of this year when the Proud Boys began doxxing local Black Lives Matter activists and hold meet and greet events, that's when we said we needed to organize proactively against this. Our goal broadly is to expose the far-right and far-right extremism."

Far-right activists have repeatedly accused Miami Against Fascism of doxxing, the practice of gathering and posting someone's personal identifying information online for malicious purposes.

But Diego argues that the account only posts social-media screenshots of people in public places and redacts private phone numbers, addresses, and contact information.

"We do not publish any info that shows home address, we don't publish personal numbers," Diego says. "Our goal is not to personally harass individuals, just to create sunshine and exposure.

Local far-right groups including the Vice City Proud Boys — which frequently posts individuals' home addresses on its public Telegram channel — celebrated Miami Against Fascism's entanglement with the Twitter bureaucracy.

"We will not relent till your page is erased from existence. A bunch of childless soy boy faggots and crazy rainbow haired feminazi cunts," reads one post from the Vice City Telegram channel about Miami Against Fascism's issues with Twitter.

More proof of abuse and doxxing of concerned parents from that fascist page: pic.twitter.com/k1XKO9CyrJ

— FL WATCHDOG 🐶 (@CFDoxxer) November 24, 2021

One Twitter account, FL Watchdog (@CFDoxxer), which frequently reposts content from the Proud Boys and also publishes home addresses and contact information of leftist activists, trumpeted the success of the mass reporting aimed at Miami Against Fascism.

"Bye scum," @CFDoxxer captioned a screenshot of a notice from Twitter that Miami Against Fascism had been locked out of their account following their reports. "Miami fash is officially having a meltdown right now. MISSION ACCOMLISHED [sic] PEOPLE!" read another post. (@CFDoxxer did not return New Times' requests for comment.)

Some of @CFDoxxer's own posts were taken down from Twitter, including a thread in which the account posted the home address and contact info of a local activist, Dulcee Barnes.

Diego tells New Times he deleted most of the posts Twitter flagged for removal but notes that some of the posts that were reported didn't seem to violate the new rule on its face.

"We had a take-down notice on a retweet of a picture of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio sitting in front of the Miami school board meeting by Christina Boomer Vazquez from Channel 10 — a tweet by a journalist, not private media," Diego says.

Thread 🧵 on how the new @TwitterSafety policy has effected anti-fascist / far-right extremist researchers.

As well, the new policy threatens the ability of independent and citizen journalists reporting on current events - a critical role that @Twitter has played globally. https://t.co/RyvABrcsfV

— Miami Against Fascism 🌴☕️ (@MIAagainstFash) December 4, 2021

Diego says his page was reinstated after he appealed the ban. From now on, he adds, the account will only use photos taken from public social media accounts and outline exactly how its targets' actions in the public sphere can negate their claim to privacy.

Howard Wasserman, a First Amendment law professor at Florida International University, isn't surprised by the fallout of Twitter's new policy.

"They can’t distinguish between Nazis posting their pictures of their marches to someone posting images of a Nazi march in order to shame them or draw attention to the problem," Wasserman tells New Times. "There’s a difference between publicizing what someone does in public and disclosing private information like address and phone number. You can't participate in that march and say you have privacy interests."

Adds Wasserman: "Twitter’s gonna have to circle back on this. The policy has been a disaster. The fallout is gonna be too great."


Editor's note 12/17/2021: Prior to publication, New Times attempted without success to contact Alixandra Caballero, who created the Twitter account FL WATCHDOG (@CFDoxxer), for comment. We later heard from Ms. Caballero and invited her to respond to the story. Her statement is below, edited for length and clarity.

"I am a Miami-Dade mom who has been speaking out at Miami-Dade County school board meetings, and the Miami Against Fascism Twitter account has been trying to silence me. Twitter's former policy had allowed 'antifa' accounts to post photos, full names, the addresses of businesses they owned or those that employed them, with the malicious intent of having their followers report them. They posted my and my husband's full names and the name of our business and have harassed our family by sending them malicious emails and threatening them. They call me racist, anti-Semitic, and other derogatory terms because I don't agree with their communist ideology. These same intimidation tactics and worse were used on my family in Cuba when Castro came to power.

"The Miami-Dade school board is allowing antifa and Black Lives Matter groups to attend its meetings and write down speakers' names to create trouble for them just for voicing their concerns. I and other parents have complained to the school board and filed police reports, and nothing has been done."