Facebook Bans Many Extremist Figures Like Alex Jones And Milo Yiannopoulos

On May 02, Facebook made an announcement on its ban on many political personalities such as Alex Jones because these men allegedly violated its policies about “dangerous individuals and organizations.”

Accordingly, the tech giant removed many accounts of renowned figures who belonged to the far-right parties. Some included Laura Loomer, Paul Joseph Watson, and Milo Yiannopoulos.

More notably, Paul Nehlen (known as a white supremacist) and Louis Farrakhan (leader of Nation of Islam) are also in the list of banned Facebook accounts. Paul Nehlen used to run for Congress last year while Louis Farrakhan has called Jewish people as “termites” and propagated black separatism.

In addition to accounts, Facebook also removes a series of events, groups and pages that are related to the above-banned personalities, on its two major social networking platforms including Facebook and Instagram. The company states that all of the users spreading hate as well as the violence will be banned.

This time, it didn’t have any intention to forbid its users from supporting or praising the banned groups or individuals in the same way it had done with militant groups such as al-Qaeda or Islamic State. As a piece of evidence, after Facebook removed Louis Farrakhan’s account, Instagram users could still see all his videos (including a video to show what he thinks about Jews) along with 17,000 other posts with the hashtag #louisfarrakhan.

According to screenshots offered by Ryan Mac, a journalist at BuzzFeed, before Facebook removed these accounts, it sent an announcement on its ban to the owners. In other words, it gave them more time to create other channels and ask their followers to move to these channels.

According to a report from CNBC, Alex Jones who spread a lot of conspiracy theories concerning the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting instantly created a new account. He also live-streamed to express his opinions on the ban. Besides, another reason behind it was that Jones had invited Gavin McInnes, a leader of a racist organization, to his show.

On his website Infowars, Alex Jones said the ban “... amounts to editorial control over user content - and a donation in kind to the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.”

A lot of social media firms have experienced a difficult period with individuals and groups of the far-right parties. That’s why they have been struggling and looking for effective solutions to tackle extremist content for many years although their providers are using the services to attract a huge amount of followers.

However, how Facebook enforces its policies sometimes makes us difficult to understand: the company banned Jones’s pages as well as other pages related to his website in 2018 and still let his personal profile active on its platform.

In addition, Alphabet Inc (Google’s parent company), Twitter, and Apple Inc put a ban on Infowars one year ago.

The social networking companies have come under fire by conservatives when suspending a series of accounts. They believe that these companies are biased and too strict in their censorship. According to civil rights groups, social networking companies haven’t managed to face extremism.

As per Facebook, the company states that it will keep enforcing its rules and there will be no prejudice. In April 2019, many of its policies were further tightened. Also, it decided to ban support, praise, as well as any form that represents white separatism and white nationalism.

Facebook said, “We’ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology. The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today.”

Its move received a high appreciation from Media Matters for America. The liberal media watchdog group believed that the company has inspired “some optimism that [Facebook] might be capable of taking responsibility for the ways its platforms have empowered extremists.”