Case Study: a michigan militia group achieves public exposure of open social-media organizing with Alethea

Michigan Militia Groups Organize Openly on Social Media

Michigan Militia Groups were the focus of Alethea’s Election Protection Project as investigators sought to understand whether and how militia actors in Michigan were organizing online ahead of the 2020 elections. The challenge was to assess their potential election impact and to track activity as mainstream platforms cracked down, using open-source investigation across Facebook, Twitter and off-platform apps.

Alethea conducted an open-source investigation of 25 identified groups and found evidence of well-organized local chapters, hierarchical structures, and community-style rhetoric, with some groups also promoting fitness and training. Alethea showed that Facebook’s algorithm was amplifying reach (13 groups were surfaced via related-pages functions), identified the Michigan Militia Corps, Wolverines (MMCW) before it was taken down, and documented migration to alternatives like MeWe, providing actionable findings for election-protection efforts.

Michigan Militia Groups