Facebook bans white nationalism, separatism

Facebook has banned praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism on its social media platforms, bolstering its efforts to tackle hate speech.

The policy will be enforced next week, the social media giant said in a blog entry.

Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet's YouTube are under pressure to remove white supremacist and neo-Nazi content from their platforms.

In response, Facebook has beefed up its content monitoring teams and has taken down event pages that were used to promote and organize rallies by White supremacy groups.

The company previously allowed some white nationalist content it did not view as racist, but recently decided to change course.

"Over the past three months our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups," the company said.

"Going forward ... we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism."

Facebook said it would also start connecting people who search for terms associated with white supremacy to an organization called Life After Hate, focused on helping people leave hate groups.

Life After Hate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)