End of fun. Facebook has begun banning extreme right-wing organizations in Great Britain

Facebook does not want extreme right-wing organizations on its platform. In England, accounts of the largest such groups and their representatives were deleted.

Representatives of the Zuckerberg platform came to the conclusion that extreme-right organizations spread hatred posing a real threat to users and should therefore be removed from Facebook. The first bans poured in England.

There is no place for hate speech on Facebook.

The most important groups that identify with the extreme right were expelled from the site. The British National Party accounts, the English Defense League, the National Front, Britain First and Knights Templar International have disappeared, and profiles of some of the representatives of these organizations have been removed. In addition, the company announces that all posts praising these groups will be removed.

In the accompanying statement, Facebook explains that there is no place on the platform for organizations or individuals who hate or excuse anyone based on who the person is. Banned they behaved such behavior and were blocked on the basis of rules about dangerous groups.

Time will tell whether it is a preview of real changes or just a one-time symbolic action. After the attacks in New Zealand and the ever-growing pressure of politicians, the company may want to show the world that it is seriously committed to fighting nationalist content.

Facebook decided to officially tighten its policy towards promoting hatred after the tragedy in Christchurch, New Zealand .

A month has passed since more than 50 people have been killed by the assassin in Christchurch. This tragedy shook the world, and a long shadow fell on social media. The attacker kept a live report of the shooting using Facebook. The company reacted, but too late. The clones of the recording quickly arose. Copies appeared on new accounts and spread throughout the internet. How difficult to control the plague flooded social media. Neither Facebook nor Google could quickly deal with them.

Within 24 hours, Zuckerberg removed as many as 1.5 million videos depicting the attack. 1.2 million of them were detected at the stage of adding them to the site, the rest - 20%. she missed the first analysis of the algorithm.

Facebook has been used as a tool to spread the mission, views and manifesto of the assassin. And he had to deal with it somehow.

The end of promoting white nationalism on Facebook .

Although Facebook's policy has been steadily tightening up for some time, the New Zealand massacre turned out to be the turning point of its activities. On the one hand, what happened required a reaction from the website, on the other hand it created the right climate, in which the introduction of changes to ensure that no such thing would happen again was positively received by a large part of public opinion.

In response to the massacre and his involuntary involvement in the plan of the assassin, the platform announced that it would ban the manifestations of nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook has long had regulations that clearly prohibit incitement to hatred and discrimination also on racial or national grounds. Until now, however, identifying themselves as a white separatist or white nationalist did not violate them. As the company's representatives explain, Facebook did not want to limit the identity of people who identify with them, but now it assesses that such attitudes are too close to racism and exclusionary attitudes.

Conversations over the past three months with representatives of civil society and academia who are experts in racial relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and white separatism can not be separated from white supremacy and organized hatred groups - the company's representatives write blog .

Facebook in this move may want to show that it is playing the same goal as English politicians.

Politicians are closely watching how Facebook moderates its platform. Perhaps it was the pressure of politicians that influenced Facebook to take the first step to eliminate nationalistic content in England. The British look more and more critically on Facebook.

It is enough to remind that one of the British politicians published internal Facebook documents, which he acquired in at least dubious circumstances from an entrepreneur who was fighting with a company in an American court. Added to this is the tightening of the policy towards content appearing on the internet.

According to politicians' declarations, the United Kingdom is to become the safest place in the world to surf the net. Politicians in their plans emphasized the importance of Facebook and the fact that the company should take more responsibility for what appears on its pages.

Facebook is a hostage to its own success.

Facebook is a private company platform, but a very specific platform. Thanks to its dizzying success, it acts as a public forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions. Not necessarily important thoughts and not necessarily important opinions, but nevertheless. Blocking access to Facebook and Instagram is a turn from a surprisingly important and large part of the Internet.

Should a private company play such an important role? This is a topic for a completely different discussion, because the fact is that it plays it.

The decision on the removal of specific groups by the moderator of private space should not be controversial, the social role that Facebook plays gives it its specific dimension. The platform can not make arbitrary decisions anymore, not explaining that everything it does does for the good of the world and humanity.

Facebook put himself in this position, painting himself as a place where everyone is welcome, can feel safe and conduct important discussions. The narrative, in which Mark Zuckerberg changes cases like universal, just, real, makes him not the president of a company that is supposed to make money, but a company that is supposed to protect morality and ethics on the internet.

Can you say everything on the internet?

Where in the public space (because at the urging of Zuckerberg so we treat Facebook) are the limits of what can and can not be said in the public forum? To the conclusion that not everything is allowed, we, as a state, have come a long time ago. The number of restrictions in Poland ranges from incitement to hatred, punishments to offending religious feelings.

One of the problems is that words can never be underestimated. Let's take the recruitment of terrorists. It has been known for years that this platform is a great recruitment tool for both crocheting enthusiasts, racist and terrorist groups. The company has been emphasizing its commitment to fight especially with the latter for years. Recent attacks in New Zealand directed her eyes to the threat posed by groups of nationalists and separatists.

End of fun. Facebook has begun banning extreme right-wing organizations in Great Britain