The Intercept, the news website run in part by journalist Glenn Greenwald, had to correct an erroneous report that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are using Facebook data to track down illegal immigrants.
Editor Ryan Grim updated the story, written by Lee Fang, shortly after it was published Monday.
“The documents reported on in the story do not establish that the target of the investigation was an immigrant or that the individual was being pursued for immigration violations,” the correction said. “The target of the investigation was, according to the documents, based in the New York metropolitan area, while several of the ICE agents on the emails were based in New Mexico. Additionally, this story has been updated to include a comment from Facebook.”
The original headline on the story said that ICE agents use Facebook data “to find and track immigrants, internal emails show.” It linked the story to the Trump administration, noting ICE is “tasked with Trump’s program of mass deportation” and that the agency is utilizing “backend Facebook data to locate and track immigrants that it is working to round up …”
The emails cited in the story, however, showed that agents were more likely watching a suspected gang member and were using IP addresses and phone numbers they obtained through Facebook.
The updated version of the Intercept article removed most of the language about immigration. The headline now says ICE uses Facebook “to find and track suspects…”
In the correction, Grim took responsibility for the error. “Due to errors by editor Ryan Grim, this story and its headline originally reported that the investigation referred to in the ICE emails targeted an immigrant,” it said. “The story as filed did not include those errors, or any others.”
