Under pressure to remove hate speech and hate groups from its platforms, Facebook is finally taking action, announcing a ban on white nationalism and white separatism in a blog post Wednesday.
The social media giant said it intends to begin enforcing the ban on "praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism on Facebook and Instagram" beginning next week.
"It's clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services," officials with the tech company said.
While Facebook officials said they previously allowed some white nationalist content they did not view as racist, they recently changed their minds after conversations with international race relations experts, who “confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups.”
"Going forward … we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism or separatism," company officials said in the blog post.
Officials said they've beefed up their content monitoring teams and have taken down event pages that were used to promote and organize rallies by white supremacy groups.
Twitter and Alphabet’s YouTube are facing similar pressures to control hate group and racist speech.
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