Starting next week, Facebook and Instagram will no longer be allowing white nationalism and separatism to be shared on their social media platforms.
“It’s clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services.” Facebook saidin a blog post, Wednesday morning.
Facebook says they had conversations with academics and civil rights groups who convinced the company to expand previous policy that wasn’t addressing white supremacists abusing the platform with hate speech towards minorities.
“We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism.” Facebook posted.
Facebook’s new approach includes an attempt to connect people who search for terms associated with extremist hate speech with an organization that provides a place of compassion and forgiveness for them.
“People searching for these terms will be directed to Life After Hate, an organization founded by former violent extremists, that provides crisis intervention, education, support groups, and outreach.”
Facebook also ensured users that they would try their best to stay ahead of this continuing problem as people work to sidestep their efforts.
“Unfortunately, there will always be people who try to game our systems to spread hate.” Facebook included, “Our challenge is to stay ahead by continuing to improve our technologies, evolve our policies and work with experts who can bolster our own efforts. We are deeply committed and will share updates as this process moves forward.”
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