Facebook announced in their newsroom on Wednesday, March 27, that, starting next week, they will be banning “praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram.”
The newsroom announcement states that, until now, Facebook didn’t ban white nationalist and separatist posts because “ because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism – things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.”
“Over the past three months our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups,” the announcement says. “Our own review of hate figures and organizations – as defined by our Dangerous Individuals & Organizations policy – further revealed the overlap between white nationalism and separatism and white supremacy.”
Additionally, Facebook will start re-directing people who search for white supremacist terms on the social media platform to an organization called Life After Hate that focuses on driving people away from violent extremism.
Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Associated Press, “This is long overdue as the country continues to deal with the grip of hate and the increase in violent white supremacy. We need the tech sector to do its part to combat these efforts.”
On March 15, a white supremacist murdered 50 people at two New Zealand mosques. The video of the shootings could be seen on Facebook Live.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted:
It's no longer enough for companies to only respond reactively to tragedies with long overdue policy changes like this one. Join us in calling on all tech CEOs to take aggressive action to prevent the spread of extremism online: https://t.co/r9EHBerCvf https://t.co/utPJCKIJx0
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) March 27, 2019
