Facebook bans conspiracy theorists, controversial black activist

Facebook on Thursday banned prominent conspiracy theorists including Infowars founder Alex Jones and the controversial black activist Louis Farrakhan in its latest push to crack down on hate content at the leading social network.

"We've always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology," Facebook, which has been under intensifying pressure to curtail extremist content, said in a statement.

Among the most prominent figures banned, Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, is notorious for spreading anti-Semitic and black supremacist views.

Far-right conspiracy theorist Jones is best known for calling the 9/11 attacks an inside job and for describing the Sandy Hook school massacre as a hoax. Jones's organization Infowars was also banned by Facebook.

Others blocked Thursday from Facebook and Instagram were Milo Yiannopoulos, a high-profile right-wing provocateur; Paul Nehlen, a political candidate espousing white supremacist views; and conspiracy theorists Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer.

Facebook said those being banned had violated policies against dangerous individuals and organizations.

"Individuals and organizations who spread hate, or attack or call for the exclusion of others on the basis of who they are, have no place on Facebook," a spokeswoman for Facebook said.

Such bans typically include prohibiting others at the social network from using the platform to post praise or support from those no longer welcomed.

"Today's announcement from Facebook is a step in the right direction," said Cristina Lopez G., deputy director for extremism at nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America.

"The majority of the newly banned figures -- Yiannopoulos, Loomer, Watson, Jones, and Nehlen -- owed their influence to the massive reach they were allowed to cultivate through Facebook and Instagram."

Lopez welcomed the latest account bans, saying they promised to help limit the spread of radical and often violent far-right ideology.

Facebook last month banned various far-right British groups including the English Defense League from its network for promoting hate and violence.

Other groups kicked off both Facebook or Instagram included Knights Templar International, Britain First, the British National Party (BNP) and the National Front.

The tech titan banned the groups for contravening its policy forbidding "terrorist activity, organized hate, mass or serial murder, human trafficking or organized violence or criminal activity."

Former BNP leader Nick Griffin and Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen were also been banned in the crackdown.

- Voicing hate -

Facebook and other social media platforms have been under fire for not doing enough to curb messages of hate and violence, while at the same time criticized for failing to offer equal time for all viewpoints no matter how unpleasant.

US President Donald Trump has accused social media platforms of discriminating against users with right-wing views.

"Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices," Trump said in a tweet after Jones was curbed at Facebook and Spotify last year.

Facebook in March announced bans at the social network and Instagram on praise or support for white nationalism and white separatism.

Facebook policies already banned posts endorsing white supremacy as part of its prohibition on hate speech based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity or religion.

The ban had not applied to some postings because it was reasoned they were expressions of broader concepts of nationalism or political independence, according to the social network.

Amid pressure from governments around the world, Facebook has ramped up machine learning and artificial intelligence tools in an effort to find and remove hateful content while remaining open to free expression.

US lawmakers: social media answers on extremist content too vague
Washington (AFP) May 2, 2019 - Two US lawmakers berated social media firms Thursday for failing to provide specific information on their efforts to root out extremist content on their platforms.

The congressmen said Twitter and Google-owned YouTube provided incomplete responses and Facebook did not respond to the requests made by the House Committee on Homeland Security after mosque attacks in New Zealand that were livestreamed online.

Representative Bennie Thompson, who chairs the committee, and Max Rose, head of the subcommittee on intelligence and counterterrorism, said none of the companies was able to describe the resources dedicated to counter terrorism and extremism on their platforms.

"The fact that some of the largest corporations in the world are unable to tell us what they are specifically doing to stop terrorist and extremist content is not acceptable," they said in a joint statement.

"Domestic terrorism is on the rise both here and abroad, and of all forms of terrorism and extremism are increasingly turning to these social media platforms to proliferate their message and spread their violent, hateful content. As we saw in New Zealand, Facebook failed and admitted as much."

A letter from YouTube said the video-sharing platform spends hundreds of millions of dollars and employs some 10,000 people to block or remove content which violates policies on hate speech or incitement of violence.

But YouTube maintained that it would be "difficult and possibly misleading" to separate its counterterrorism efforts from overall expenditure to protect the site.

The company had manually reviewed a million videos suspected of violating policy on terrorist content in the first three months of 2019, it said, and removed fewer than 10 percent.

It added that its automated systems often remove videos before they are viewed.

Twitter said it had suspended more than 1.4 million accounts for violations related to the promotion of terrorism and that it enforces its ban on specific threats of violence or physical harm to others.

Thompson and Rose said the letters lacked specifics on how these firms tackle extremism.

"Broad platitudes and vague explanations of safety procedures aren't enough," they wrote. "We need a full accounting of what is being done."

The House panel asked in March for a briefing from Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft after the attacks that killed 50 worshipers at mosques in Christchurch which the assailant streamed on Facebook Live, and which was then copied and reposted elsewhere.

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