Archive note — updated September 4, 2026: This article preserves a breaking-news report published on August 26, 2020. Later developments—including Kyle Rittenhouse’s 2021 acquittal and Facebook’s correction about who deleted the related event—are dated below.
Facebook removed the Page of Kenosha Guard, a local self-described militia, after two people were killed and another was wounded during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In its initial statement, Facebook also claimed it had removed a related Event; the company later acknowledged that the organizer had deleted the Event before Facebook acted.
The shootings and the protest
On August 25, 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot Joseph Rosenbaum near a car dealership. After Rittenhouse ran from that scene, was pursued and fell in the street, he shot Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz. Rosenbaum and Huber died; Grosskreutz was wounded. This sequence, documented in the Wisconsin court record for State v. Rittenhouse, involved separate encounters rather than indiscriminate fire into a single group.
Authorities arrested Rittenhouse in Antioch, Illinois, on August 26. At the time this article was published, authorities had announced a first-degree intentional homicide charge. A Wisconsin criminal complaint filed the following day brought multiple charges arising from the three shootings.
The protests followed the August 23 police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man. A later Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation account said officers were attempting to arrest Blake when he walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s-side door and leaned forward. Officer Rusten Sheskey then fired seven times while holding Blake’s shirt. DCI also said Blake acknowledged possessing a knife and that investigators recovered one from the driver’s-side floorboard.
Videos from August 25 showed law-enforcement officers speaking with armed civilians, distributing bottled water and expressing appreciation for them. Rittenhouse was among the armed people shown receiving water. Members of the group said they were present to protect property, according to video reviewed by The Washington Post.
The Kenosha Guard event
Before the shootings, the Kenosha Guard Page published a Facebook Event titled “Armed Citizens to Protect our Lives and Property.” According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a post sought “patriots willing to take up arms and defend [our] City tonight from the evil thugs.”
At least two Facebook users reported the Page or Event before the shootings, but moderators determined that they did not violate Facebook’s rules, The Verge reported.
Facebook’s response
In an August 26 statement to TechCrunch, Facebook said it had removed the Kenosha Guard Page and Rittenhouse’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The company initially said it had also removed the Event.
Facebook said it had “not found evidence on Facebook” that Rittenhouse followed the Kenosha Guard Page or had been invited through its Event.
That statement concerned evidence found on Facebook; it did not establish whether Rittenhouse learned of the armed gathering through another route. Facebook said the Kenosha Guard Page and Event violated its recently expanded policy addressing militia organizations. Announced on August 19, 2020, the policy covered organizations and movements linked to potential violence.
At the time, Facebook also said it was monitoring its platforms for content praising or supporting the shootings and would remove material that violated its rules concerning violence and dangerous organizations.
Later corrections and updates
August 28, 2020: BuzzFeed News reported, citing an internal Facebook document, that users had flagged the Event at least 455 times and that four moderators had deemed it non-violating. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the failure to act sooner “largely an operational mistake.”
September 3, 2020: Facebook corrected its initial account, saying it removed the Kenosha Guard Page but that the Event had been deleted by its organizer. The company apologized for the error.
November 19, 2021: After a trial in which Rittenhouse argued self-defense, a jury found him not guilty on all five counts submitted to it.
Related: Facebook bans ‘violent network’ of far-right boogaloo accounts
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