Facebook has announced stricter rules against promoting white nationalism and promised to appoint an executive with experience in civil rights as part of a new slate of solutions the social network hopes will appease organizers of an ad boycott.
On Thursday, Facebook released a new framework that addresses the 10 demands of civil rights organizations to tackle disinformation and hate speech. The civil rights groups, including the NAACP, Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change, formed a coalition called Stop Hate for Profit that is running an ad boycott against Facebook throughout July.
Facebook sent its policy proposals to advertisers on Wednesday before posting a version online on Thursday. Among the changes, Facebook revealed it would do more to remove messages that veer into “white nationalism.” The new rules come just one day after BuzzFeed reported that Facebook featured ads promoting “white nationalism.”
Facebook said in its note to advertisers, which was obtained by Ad Age, that it was “implementing changes to our content policies, including an expanded policy that bans praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism, and a new policy that prohibits content encouraging or calling for the harassment of others.”
In its blog post on Thursday, Facebook did not specifically reference the new rules on white nationalism, but noted that it was “going above and beyond existing hate speech protections to ban some types of ads that are divisive with fear-mongering statements.”
Facebook declined to comment further for this story.
Its policy announcements, however, were a clear response to the ongoing brand boycott, which has attracted major brands, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Pfizer and many others. The companies have sided with Stop Hate for Profit, which has presented 10 demands. Facebook's announcement goes through the 10 points, noting where it is trying to show progress. It called the document: “Boycott recommendations and Facebook's ongoing efforts.”