Hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, users spread a false claim on Facebook that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was paying a bounty for reports of undocumented people.
“BREAKING — ICE is allegedly offering $750 per illegal immigrant that you turn in through their tip form,” read a post on a page called NO Filter Seeking Truth, adding, “Cash in folks.”
Check Your Fact, Reuters, and other fact-checkers debunked the claim, and Facebook added labels to posts warning that they contained false information or missing context. ICE has a tip line but said it does not offer cash bounties.
This spring, Meta plans to stop working with fact-checkers in the U.S. to label false or misleading content, the company said on Jan. 7. And if a post like the one about ICE goes viral, the pages that spread it could earn a cash bonus.
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