By Alan Ai ‘21
As a result of a long-running controversy surrounding its policies toward white nationalist activity on its platform, Facebook has finally elected to pull the plug on allowing white nationalist content to be posted in any way, shape, or form. Beginning with the controversy surrounding Motherboard’s exposé into Facebook’s moderator training programs that claimed a distinction on dealing with white supremacy, white nationalism, and white separatism, pressure from activists and civil rights groups has finally led Facebook to scratch said distinction and treat all three of the above as white extremism. Additionally, the spread of the Christchurch, New Zealand gunman’s livestream on its platform has forced Facebook’s hand into a deeper look into their facilitation of potentially dangerous white nationalist content. This shift in policy is set to come with some road bumps, however. The need for new training of Facebook’s moderators requires a one week delay in the rollout of the policy, allowing any overtly white nationalist groups to openly strategize on what platform they will be able to congregate on next. Additionally, the new policy isn’t going to apply to less obvious or explicit declarations of white nationalist beliefs, which could be a major pain point for the company. As it stands, most white nationalist groups or posters on Facebook make an effort to avoid overt language in their posts, using replacement terms for minority groups (e.g. “termites” for Jews) as to avoid detection from Facebook’s moderators and algorithms. Because the policy would not be able to detect more subtle white nationalist undertones in any given post, Facebook would still be allowing white nationalist content to run free on the platform, with the new policy simply being a warning shot that the white nationalists should be more careful in their selection of language, potentially creating a hatred-based “arms race” in which Facebook would have to frantically keep up with the constantly evolving white nationalist terminologies used in such posts. Finally, another issue arises in whether or not individual Facebook moderators will have the ability to make judgement calls on individual posts, as well as if these moderators will have the time, bandwidth, and manpower to accomplish the task. If Facebook continues to be stingy in how much autonomy they allow the moderators to have in deciding whether or not to remove a post, as seen in the previous policy in which moderators only had 30 seconds to make such a decision, the effects of the policy may be minimal. Overall, although this policy is certainly a step in the right direction, its success will entirely depend on the details. Moderator autonomy and proper training are essential to the policy’s rollout, as well as Facebook’s ability to control any backlash at the hands of the white nationalist community. While this policy does absolutely nothing to prevent white nationalist groups from congregating on other platforms, Facebook has shown its intention to prevent any such speech from running rampant on its own. If executed properly, Facebook’s ban on white nationalism could be a major victory in the fight against hate; if executed poorly, it may be just another blip in the radar with a small and easily forgettable impact, which, given Facebook’s track record with such initiatives, seems to be the more probable outcome. Sources:https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-ban-white-nationalism-separatism-hate-speech/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/business/facebook-white-nationalist-supremacist.htmlhttps://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707258353/facebook-bans-white-nationalism-and-separatism-content-from-its-platformsImage:https://a57.foxnews.com/media2.foxnews.com/BrightCove/694940094001/2019/03/27/931/524/694940094001_6018870081001_6018844190001-vs.jpg?ve=1&tl=1