The Facebook policy change notes that there isn’t really a distinction between white supremacy, white nationalism, and white separatism.
Facebook announced today that it was banning support for white nationalism and white separatism from its platform, deciding that the two ideologies were virtually indistinguishable from white supremacy, which was already against the rules. Previously, Facebook rules drew a distinction between white supremacy and the other two categories — one that various civil right organizations found to be ridiculous. The company’s reversal was first reported by Motherboard, which also uncovered internal docs splitting hairs about white supremacist ideology last year.
“We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity,” Facebook wrote in a blog post announcing the change.
