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Facebook takes a step in the right direction

It is no secret that social platforms have played a major part in the spread of right-wing ideology.

The social media companies are generally slow in doing anyting against this spreading, some times to such a degree that some people claim that they help spreaad right-wing stuff.
Now, Facebook have taken a step in the right direction.

Facebook said the decision was taken because it bans users who “proclaim a violent or hateful mission or are engaged in acts of hate or violence”.

“Individuals and organisations who spread hate, or attack or call for the exclusion of others on the basis of who they are, have no place on Facebook. Under our dangerous individuals and organisations policy, we ban those who proclaim a violent or hateful mission or are engaged in acts of hate or violence,” Facebook said in a statement.

“The individuals and organisations we have banned today violate this policy, and they will no longer be allowed a presence on Facebook or Instagram. Posts and other content which expresses praise or support for these figures and groups will also be banned. Our work against organised hate is ongoing and we will continue to review individuals, organisations, pages, groups and content against our community standards.”

It is a move that has been slow in comming, but it is good that Facebook has finally taken it. Now, we just need for them to react to all the other far right-winged individuals and groups, and for the other social media, like Twitter, to do it as well.

Edit: I had forgotten to write “far” in front of right-winged in the last paragraph, making it seem like I was calling for a more extreme stance than I did.

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Comments

  1. blf says

    On the other hand, Facebook teams with rightwing Daily Caller in factchecking program:

    Site co-founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson has promoted misinformation and is known for pro-Trump content
    […]
    The social network said Wednesday it had added CheckYourFact.com, which is part of the Daily Caller, as one of its US media partners in an initiative that has faced growing backlash from journalists and internal problems. […]

    Factcheckers in the program are tasked with debunking potential false stories on Facebook to help stop their spread, but some journalists have said the effort hasn’t been effective, and one of its major American partners, Snopes.com, cut ties earlier this year.

    The Daily Caller […] publishes conservative news stories and commentary and has faced repeated accusations of running false and offensive content. In January, the site was widely condemned for the way it reported on a fake nude photo of the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and its coverage of immigration and the White House has typically aligned with Trump’s agenda.

    Check Your Fact is billed as the “fact-check department” of the Daily Caller, and the site says it is “non-partisan” and “loyal to neither people nor parties”. It has dedicated reporters rating content as true and false and says it is a for-profit subsidiary of the Daily Caller Inc, of which Carlson is a majority owner.

    […]

    This week, a Wired investigation on Facebook reported that a vice-president at the company had once argued that the Facebook newsfeed should treat the content from Daily Caller and Breitbart, another rightwing outlet, in the same manner as stories from mainstream news outlets.

    […]

    Major factchecking sites have repeatedly debunked Daily Caller content over the years. The Daily Caller previously published articles by the white supremacist behind a far-right rally in Charlottesville, falsely labeled a Trump critic as a “porn star” and published propaganda about George Soros. A Daily Caller editor was also caught writing for an “alt-right” website under a pseudonym last year.

    A Harvard report on partisan disinformation in 2016 said the Daily Caller played a “key role” in “creating and disseminating stories” that promoted deep “anti-Muslim sentiment” and “stoked the belief among core Trump followers” that Hillary Clinton was “criminal and treasonous”.

    […]

  2. sonofrojblake says

    Now, we just need for them to react to all the other right-winged individuals and groups, and for the other social media, like Twitter, to do it as well

    So… now that the violent extremists have been removed (an unalloyed good thing) what? It’s time to go after the moderates, and indeed every other individual who’s not sufficiently lefty.

    Who’s next? The Jews?

  5. says

    It’s funny how I stumbled upon a blog post praising Facebook only an hour or two after I published my own critique about how Facebook is discriminating queer and transgender people whose legal names do not match their gender identities. After all, changing one’s legal name can be time consuming and costly. In my case, I cannot change it at all without first changing my citizenship (the country where I happened to be born sucks). My post about Facebook is here – https://andreasavester.com/facebook-hates-transgender-people-or-why-i-got-forbidden-from-having-a-facebook-account/

    Anyway, it’s nice to hear that Facebook is making some progress, but I’d say that they still have a very far way to go. Personally, I’m not expecting anything good from Facebook. Too many things about their current practices are problematic. Thus, for me, the annoying thing is that so many people use Facebook. If somebody wants to reach a wider audience for whatever it is that they are producing (be it news, or artworks, or videos, or anything else), then they must use Facebook, regardless of how much they might dislike Facebook policies. It’s also a pity that so many people get their news from Facebook.

  6. says

    Oh, I would love if facebook went the way of MySpace – I like being able to be in contact with people all over the world, but the medium is horrible, as you point out.