Despite being taken offline Friday night, a private, men-only Facebook group that was linked to trolling attacks on several B.C. businesses appears to have re-emerged.
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The ‘Official HimPower Backup Group’ Facebook group has garnered a slew of new members since the ‘HimPower’ group was shut down after CTV News revealed that some of its 44,000+ members were sharing intimate images of women without their consent and posting offensive online reviews for an abortion clinic and at least two B.C. businesses.
The Official HimPower Backup Group was created about two weeks ago.
“Posts won't be activated unless something is to happen to the original HimPower,” the Facebook group’s ‘about’ page says. “Join and pretend it doesnt (sic) exist temporarily.”
As of Saturday afternoon, the new group had more than 1,400 members.
Another new Facebook group, called ‘HimPower Backup Queue,’ was also asking people to like its page “to be added to the official new group.” In a private message Saturday, a HimPower Backup Queue administrator confirmed the group is for “people who want to be invited to join the new one.”
“(T)he old one got shut down because things kind of got out of hand, and it’s a shame because little do people know, a lot of good came out of that group,” the administrator added. “So we’re just in the process of rebuilding it and we’re going to try to be a little more strict on the rules than we were before.”
According to several HimPower members, the original Facebook group was meant to be a private community for men to share offensive content without fear of offending outsiders.
“The main objective is edgy memes and humour,” one member told CTVNews.ca.
“A lot of the humour in the group is more alt-right and considered edgy or offensive,” the HimPower Backup Queue administrator added. “It’s kind of sad because the entire goal is to kind of have a bastion for edgy humour and then people sneak into the group, find the humor, become appalled, and try to take the group down.”
On Friday evening, Facebook Canada told CTV that it was investigating the HimPower group. Hours later, it had been taken offline.
According to Jesse Miller, who runs social media education company Mediated Reality, there is “not much” that social media companies like Facebook can do to stop people or groups that have violated their terms of service from creating new user profiles or groups.
“You will always have another person willing to recreate it,” Miller told CTVNews.ca. “You’re allowed to have a group that comes together based on common identity, and in this regard, it’s about men communicating. Unfortunately, sometimes what we see in these groups is that they do things that are in direct violation of Facebook’s terms of service. You’re not going to stop it -- you just have to, at the end of the day, learn how to educate those participating that what they’re sharing might not necessarily be the best.”
Speaking to CTVNews.ca, the the HimPower Backup Queue administrator said “that any sort of law breaking, cyber attacks, or harassment done by the group has nothing to do with the group as a whole.”
“We’ve done our best to take care of those situations, but a few bad apples have ruined our collective reputation,” he added. “We’re not really the bad guys everyone makes us out to be.”
With files from CTVNews.ca’s Josh K. Elliott and CTV Vancouver’s Breanna Karstens-Smith
