The memo was sent weeks after the New York Post, a conservative outlet, ran a story saying that “lefty TikTokkers” were “orchestrating groups of women” to “chase dick picks and selfies of ICE agents in a twisted scheme to dox them”. That story cited Libs of TikTok, a rightwing account that had posted a screenshot of someone claiming to be part of a Facebook group dedicated to going on dates with agents to expose them. The article listed a handful of posts and videos from users discussing this tactic, though it did not include interviews with anyone who claimed to be duping agents and there was no evidence agents had been tricked.
The news coverage did not mention women using “tradwife” imagery, so it’s unclear whether the FBI may have received direct accounts from targeted agents or was simply summarizing social media trends.
“It’s absurd the FBI issued a thinly-sourced security alert about ICE agents’ online dating troubles,” Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, said in a statement. “It’s equally ludicrous the FBI is spending taxpayer dollars to protect ICE agents from possible ‘embarrassment’ at the hands of a supposed ‘small group of women’ who might name and ridicule them online.”
Mike German, a former FBI agent and longtime civil liberties advocate, reviewed the document for the Guardian and said it was odd the briefing did not have footnotes or citations. The briefing said the intelligence came from a “collaborative source”.
“The rightwing echo chamber creates threats and the government’s intelligence apparatus just repeats those threats without any context, more detail or any instruction of how agents or officers should respond,” said German, arguing it seemed likely the briefing was inspired by the New York Post story. “They must have run out of other threats.”