Facebook BANS white nationalism and white separatism from its platform and Instagram as it attempts to bring down the hammer on extremist content

It is disturbing that criticism of immigration will be included in the ban.  A great deal of perfectly reasonable discourse could fall under that

And what about "Make America great".  That would see to fall squarely within the range of banned expressions

Will posts expressing Muslim supremacy be banned too?  Claims that Islam will and should rule everywhere are very common in Muslim discourse.

And does the ban apply to Hindu nationalism?  "Hindutva" is the creed of India's current governing party.  Yogi Adityanath,  chief minister of India’s most populous state, has claimed that Hindus are “preparing for religious war” and has called Muslims “a crop of two-legged animals that has to be stopped.” There are actual anti-Muslim riots in India. Many Indians would take great offence at censorship of "Hindutva" expressions


Facebook has banned white nationalism and white separatist posts from its platform, in what likely constitutes its most aggressive action against extremist content yet.

The policy will be put in place starting next week and will affect all of Facebook's nearly 2 billion-wide user base, in addition to Instagram, the firm announced.

'It’s clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services,' Facebook wrote in a blog post. 

The social media giant has removed posts from extremist groups in the past for violating its policies around hate speech and abuse, but has historically fallen short of outright banning posts of this kind.

Previously, Facebook only banned posts promoting white supremacism. The firm decided today that it will now ban white nationalist and white separatist posts from its platform.

Civil rights groups argued that the three extremist ideologies were indistinguishable and should all be banned.

Posts that include statements like 'I am a proud white nationalist' and 'Immigration is tearing this country apart' will immediately be banned.

Prior to Wednesday's decision, Facebook had only prevented users from sharing messages that promoted white supremacy.

'Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism.'

Highlighting the thorniness of policing extremist content, Facebook said implicit and coded white nationalism and white separatism will not be removed from the site immediately, as it's harder to detect and remove.

Facebook said it will also rely on machine learning and artificial intelligence to remove white nationalist, separatist and supremacist content.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council called the decision a 'win against white supremacy' and said it has met with the firm, including Sandberg, to urge them to take a harder stance against all forms of hate speech on Facebook.

SOURCE