(COLOMBO, LANKAPUVATH) –Facebook will no longer allow content supporting white nationalism and white separatism, it said on Tuesday. The announcement comes nearly a year after the revelation that its policy against white supremacy and hate speech still let users call for the creation of white ethno-states or claim the US “should be a white-only nation”.
The policy change announced on Wednesday, which will go into effect next week, comes in the wake of a white supremacist terror attack on mosques in New Zealand that left 50 people dead, and as Facebook and other social media companies continue to grapple with the ways violent white supremacist groups are using their platforms for propaganda and recruitment.
The company suggested in a post announcing the change that it had originally seen white nationalism as an acceptable point of view, similar to American nationalism, or Basque separatism. Although Facebook’s policies have long prohibited certain hateful rhetoric against based on people’s race, ethnicity or religion, it had not believed that “white separatism” necessarily belonged in a prohibited category.
