Two videos have gone viral on X showing FBI agents visiting people’s houses to ask questions about offensive social media posts.
The first clip shows three people who claim to be FBI agents visiting a woman called Rolla Abdeljawad at her home in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
The woman asks them to identify themselves, but they refuse to do so while being filmed, before claiming they had already shown the woman their IDs.
“What we’d like to do is have a conversation with you about some social media posts that you’ve made, would you be willing to talk to us about that?” asks one of the agents.
The woman refuses to talk until she has a lawyer present, before the agent asks her for contact information.
“No, I’ll get back to you,” states Abdeljawad.
Another agent then asks the woman to have her attorney “contact the FBI office in Oklahoma City.”
Abdeljawad is told by one of the agents that “Facebook gave us a couple of screenshots of your accounts.”
“Well you can’t arrest me for freedom of speech, we live in America, so it’s kind of weird that you want to come talk to me about me exercising my freedom of speech,” responds the woman.
“We do this every day, all day long we talk to people, it’s just an effort to keep everybody safe, make sure that nobody has any ill will or bad intent or anything like that,” responds one of the agents.
After Abdeljawad asks if the FBI would question “all the citizens in America” who used Facebook, the agent responds, “We certainly would if we had any sort of concerns.”
The clip then shows the agents leaving the scene.
The woman later posted a message on her Facebook confirming that the individuals were FBI agents.
“Just verified with local law enforcement that, the indivs who came to my home, really were FBI per their license plate. My lawyer will contact the OKC field office. The lawyer did inform me that, these instances are now common but, the lawyer doesn’t believe that FB sent them the screenshots of my posts. Rather, it seems like a fishing expedition. I do not fear them. My only concern as, I told the cop is that, someone in my state will do something or that they would and then use my posts in a malicious attempt to “smear” me. Just *remember, I am a Muslim, an obligated protector of creation. I enjoin what is good and forbid what is wrong.”
Another X user called Kam St. Martin posted, “The FBI came to my house over a TWEET! Not cool. My pinned tweet that’s still up.”
The video she posted shows a man who introduces himself as an FBI special agent asking to speak to someone over a post which he subsequently explains is “about the Baton Rouge subject.”
The pinned tweet in question features an image of a black man who St. Martin claims killed her cousin.
“This monster drugged my 27 yr old cousin at the L’Auberge Casino in Baton Rouge last February. He dumped her half naked dead body like trash. Rap sheet a mile long. He walks today on PROBATION. Damion Matthews may you reap what you have sown,” it states.
The post has 39,000 likes.
Is the FBI really visiting private homes to police social media posts that criticize alleged murderers?