January 10, 2017

Recently, I've been made aware of a group of miscreants on Facebook calling themselves the Catena Mafia. According to my sources, they've been responsible for hacking into multiple Democratic and Progressive supporting groups, posing as like-minded liberals until they are able to socially engineer their way into being made admins of the groups.

Once they're in - they add all 26 of their friends as admins, lock out the original admins and change the group to something... not what it was originally intended to be.

The largest target I've been able to identify to this point has been the vandalization of "Proud to be a Democrat" - which was a popular progressive group. It was renamed by the Catena Mafia to "Proud to Call Trump My President" - taking its membership from over 30,000 down to around 12,000 before they changed the name back to lure in more "libtards" in their own words.

screen_shot_2017-01-10_at_11.15.41

The following members could not be reached for comment about their activities.

15873068_1861320164146214_3928745687413856136_n
Screen shot of the admin members of "Proud to be a Democrat" as of January 10, 2017.

The Catena Mafia apparently takes their name from the proto-Christian term "Catena" related to biblical commentary whereby the original text of scripture is slowly altered over time to create a continuous commentary - much like their modus operandi for taking over progressive groups on Facebook.

A deeper look on their profiles and Facebook posts shows that they are members of many known racist and extremist groups as well as filled with calls to violence, with one member, Tripp Rooks, saying it was "Time to let some bullets fly." during the Baltimore riots in 2015.

screen_shot_2017-01-10_at_11.32.53

Attempts to reach the members of the Catena Mafia have so far been unsuccessful - but I hope to be able to reach them for comment.

Reports from many group members indicated that Facebook is also ignoring requests to ban the members or regain control of the groups from the original administrators. I have not yet contacted Facebook for comment - but I do need to ask: Why are you doing nothing, Facebook?

In the meantime: Progressives Beware: White Nationalists and Alt-Right are actively trying to use digital brownshirt tactics to silence us!

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon