(Reuters) - Facebook Inc on Wednesday 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 https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/standing-against-hate post.
Facebook, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc'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 organise 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 organised 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 organisation called Life After Hate, focussed 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)
