For me, the most important lesson in the mole’s own article was: access to social media can turn tides and fortunes around.

What’s more, AP3’s best recruiting tool was essentially gone: Facebook had cracked down on paramilitary organizing. “Facebook has been our greatest weapon. It’s gotten us where we are today,” Seddon told his troops.

Social media environments help build organizations like that. And when a social media company invests non-trivial effort to cut them off (generally not out of good will, but due to legislation), they do experience a withering effect.

…but with lots of work, they can overcome it. Which is why their propaganda should be removed and countered anywhere it can be.

Seddon sought ways to capitalize on the improving political climate. In Alabama, members fanned out to shops around the state, where they dropped off stacks of business cards encouraging patriots to “do your part.” “The APIII Alabama Recruitment line has rang non stop today,” a leader reported back afterward. “I honestly wasn’t expecting it to get this big.”

In Washington state, AP3 members in the military reserves touted the militia to fellow reservists during their units’ regular monthly drills. One chapter looked into purchasing billboard ads. In internal chats, many members agreed the “best place to recruit” is Veterans Affairs facilities.

…

By the fall, they had arrived at a more efficient method. Facebook’s public posture hadn’t wavered. AP3 was still on its list of banned “dangerous organizations.” Again and again in press releases, the company said its efforts to combat militias were stronger than ever.

Inside AP3, though, leaders were seeing something different: The social media giant was gradually loosening its controls.

That sounds bad indeed.

Comparison: over here in Estonia, out of the general population, 71% trust the courts (an increase from 55% as measured back in 2013). Out of lawyers, 88% trust the courts here. A bit north of here, in Finland, 83% of the population “think that the courts are independent or very independent” (I failed to find a direct question about trust).

According to Wikipedia, wild and fully potent polio is still circulating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition, many developing countries are using live vaccines (weakened strains of polio) which can sometimes regain their ability to spread, even if they don’t do much damage.

Polio not gone, it’s just waiting for fools to think so - and to prematurely drop their defenses.