In the aftermath of the New Zealand mosque massacre, a mass shooting deployed by a white terrorist who used Facebook to live stream his depravity, Facebook has announced that white nationalism and separatism are banned from its platforms, including Instagram.
The question many posed, however, was why did this take so long?
“Our policies have long prohibited hateful treatment of people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity or religion - and that has always included white supremacy,” a statement posted by Facebook reads.
But that didn’t include white nationalism. Their reasoning might surprise you.
“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 - things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.”
It’s a strange rationalization since white nationalism and separatism rely on white supremacy, which Facebook banned last year. But at least Facebook has come to their senses, and now, white nationalism and separatism are prohibited.
Though implicit racist language is still allowed, Facebook intends to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to catch extremist behavior on their website.
Until then, be careful. The world isn’t always a safe place to be Black - and that includes the digital world.