12/01/2019 / By JD Heyes
To Facebook, black lives matter. In fact, all minority lives matter. All minority views matter. All minority opinions matter, even when they are hateful.
White people — not so much.
At least, that’s the message the social media behemoth has sent to hundreds of millions of white Americans and anyone else of European descent.
The platform recently announced it was going to crack down on “white nationalism” — which is just speech code for, “Any white person who a) backs POTUS Trump’s #MAGA message; or b) expresses any “American first” patriotism.
Bet on it.
Specifically, Facebook will ban “praise, support, and representation of white nationalism and separatism” on its platform as well as that of Instagram.
Already, Facebook had begun blocking any user from sharing messages that promote white supremacy — fair enough. But civil rights activists (most of whom, if you’ve ever noticed, are not white) have long claimed that “white nationalism” and “white separatism” are one on the same.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Facebook officials noted that “people will still be able to demonstrate pride in ethnic heritage.” However, the company will “not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism or separatism.”
The post said:
[O]ver 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 organized hate groups.
Our own review of hate figures and organizations – as defined by our Dangerous Individuals & Organizations policy – further revealed the overlap between white nationalism and separatism and white supremacy. Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism.
Podcaster Justus Knight warned that beginning in days, anyone who is white and who believes in ‘nationalism’ — which used to be called “patriotism” — is liable to find themselves deplatformed on Facebook and Instagram.
This is a change from just last year when the platform was treating these terms differently. Then, Facebook allowed the “praise, support and representation” of white nationalism and white separatism “as an ideology,” The Washington Post reported.
In documents leaked to Motherboard, training documents revealed that officials were attempting to educate the platform’s army of moderators to recognize what truly constitutes “hate speech” and what was okay for users to post (and moderators to leave up). Documents said that Facebook didn’t condone praise of or support for white supremacy, but it did “allow the same sort of positions for white nationalism and separatism,” Motherboard reported.
Explaining the definition and the platform’s position, a training document said nationalism is an “extreme right movement and ideology, but it doesn’t seem to be always associated with racism (at least not explicitly).” Facebook officials then acknowledge that “In fact, some white nationalists carefully avoid the term supremacy because it has negative connotations.” (Related: ANALYSIS: Why the treasonous Left will suffer a brutal loss in the coming civil war as power, water and food supply lines are cut by rural patriots defending America.)
But beyond all of this, the fact that Facebook is employing speech codes in the first place ought to alarm everyone.
The founder fathers’ intent behind protecting free speech was a recognition that humans have an inalienable right to say what they want and express themselves in any manner they choose, even if their speech ‘offends.’
Benjamin Franklin once observed, “If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
Adds American historian Henry S. Commager, “If we create an atmosphere in which men fear to think independently, inquire fearlessly, express themselves freely, we will, in the end, create the kind of society in which men no longer care to think independently or to inquire fearlessly.”
Whites have become fodder in the Left’s race war. It only gets uglier from here.
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Tagged Under: banned, Big Tech, Censorship, Facebook, First Amendment, Founding Fathers, free speech, Hate speech, Instagram, left cult, Offensive Speech, race war, speech Nazis, speech police, suppression, tech giants, thought police, White nationalism, white separatism
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