Two viral videos posted to X have raised concerns that President Joe Biden’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been knocking on citizens’ doors to ask them about messages they have posted on their personal social media accounts.
The clips, both of which were shared on March 28, depict two different women who find individuals identifying as FBI agents coming to their residences and asking to speak to them about things they have posted online.
In one video, an Oklahoma resident is visited by two men and one woman who, per the video footage, do not show their identification to her when she asks, claiming they “already did,” presumably before she began filming the interaction. She refuses to talk to them at the moment, saying she would rather have a lawyer present. They then tell her the phone number of the FBI office she should call to have the conversation.
When asked why she needed to speak to them, one man explained that “Facebook gave us a couple screenshots of your account” while another said they “would” question more people about their posts if they “had concerns.” The content of the post in question is unclear.
Joe Biden's DOJ pic.twitter.com/XoxI5mhGFB
— Joel Fischer 🇺🇸 (@realJoelFischer) March 28, 2024
Another video shows one man on the doorstep of another woman’s home, indicating he wishes to talk to her about one of her posts on X. Although not every word of the brief interaction shared is audible, the man appears to show the woman his identification.
Later, she posted about the incident on the same platform, saying it was “not cool.” The message in question in her case is the pinned post on her account, which shows a picture of a man who “drugged my 27 yr old cousin” last year and who is now out of prison on parole.
Both videos attracted significant attention, sparking backlash against the federal law enforcement agency and increased calls for its defunding. The criticism comes months after similar scrutiny was dealt against the FBI for its alleged monitoring of so-called “radical” Catholic citizens.
During a December 2023 Senate hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) grilled FBI director Christopher Wray about a memo that signified scrutiny of Catholics and pointed out that the agency had approached parish leaders in an effort to gain information about parishioners in question.
Overall citizen satisfaction with the FBI has dropped significantly in recent years. One poll released in January 2022 found that less than 50% of Americans saw the agency in a positive light, which marked a 60% decrease in satisfaction from May 2020.
