European Observatory to Combat Radicalization
The Far Right on Facebook
Counterextremism ـNeo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right groups and online businesses maintain a presence on Facebook. Facebook is the third most visited website on the Internet and is also the world’s largest social media network, with over 2.2 billion regular users as of February 2018.* According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of U.S. adults use Facebook, with 81% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 using the platform.* Because of its popularity, Facebook has become an important tool for political or community organizations and commercial brands—including, unfortunately, for far-right extremists.
Even though the company explicitly bans hate speech and hate groups in its Community Standards,* Facebook appears to have a reactionary approach to removing neo-Nazi and white supremacist content from its platform. For example, Facebook deactivated a page belonging to the Traditionalist Workers Party, a neo-Nazi group, only after it was revealed that the group participated in the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. The page was reported to the company prior to the event.* In another instance, a Huffington Post investigation in summer 2018 found that four neo-Nazi and white supremacist clothing stores were able to operate on Facebook. The tech giant finally removed the pages once it was faced with negative press.* Despite seeing astronomical revenues of approximately $40.7 billion in 2017, Facebook is failing to enforce its own Community Standards in a proactive manner
In September 2018, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) identified and monitored a small selection of 40 Facebook pages belonging to online stores that sell white supremacist clothing, music, or accessories, or white supremacist or neo-Nazi groups. Pages were located through searches for known white supremacist or neo-Nazi keywords. CEP researchers recorded information for each page such as the number of likes, date of creation, and examples of white supremacist or neo-Nazi content. After two months, CEP reported the pages—only 35 of the 40 remained online—to Facebook and found that only four pages were ultimately removed. Clearly, Facebook’s process for reviewing and removing this content-which violates its own Community Standards-is inadequate.
What Content is Allowed on Facebook?
Facebook is a private company that is able to restrict certain types of content that does not fit its mission statement, business model, or ethos.* The site’s Community Standards state that Facebook prohibits organizations or individuals involved in “organized hate” from maintaining a Facebook presence, as well as content “that expresses support or praise for groups, leaders, or individuals involved in these activities.”* Facebook defines a hate organization as:
Any association of three or more people that is organized under a name, sign, or symbol and that has an ideology, statements, or physical actions that attack individuals based on characteristics, including race, religious affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, serious disease or disability.*An unidentified Facebook spokesperson further clarified their policies towards hate groups on their platform, telling a journalist, “It doesn’t matter whether these groups are posting hateful messages or whether they’re sharing pictures of friends and family…as organized hate groups, they have no place on our platform.
