Facebook's South Africa problem: Just what exactly is 'white nationalism'?

© Con Karampelas via Unsplash.com.

As part of a flurry of changes to alter public perception of Facebook, the organisation has decided it will start taking down posts that support white nationalism and white separatism, igniting a subterranean debate about whether this move and others constitute a genuine desire to change or a genuine desire to subvert criticism.

The change has happened in the wake of the terrorist attack, live-streamed on Facebook, on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that killed 50 people. But in fact, the discussion started a few months earlier. The alleged perpetrator in the New Zealand killing, Brenton Tarrant, was reportedly a member of a white supremacist group.

It also comes in the wake of an editorial published in the Washington Post by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling for greater government regulation — a move that elicited a wide range of responses ranging from guarded support to outright cynicism.

Continue reading the full article on Daily Maverick.