Facebook, white nationalists and becoming the target of a hate campaign

In mid-November, Guardian US tech reporter Julia Carrie Wong reported on the continued presence of white nationalist organisations on Facebook. She had provided Facebook with a list of groups that were using its platform despite its stated policies against white nationalist hate, and Facebook had again failed to take action against them. She tells Anushka Asthana about the vicious, weeks-long campaign of racist and sexist harassment that followed, and why she believes Facebook has played a role in creating the conditions that enable that kind of harassment.

Several weeks ago, in response to the growing advertiser boycott over Facebook’s failure to address hate speech, Nick Clegg described a new Facebook algorithm – one that calculates the social network’s moral worth. Julia discusses the lack of transparency on how Facebook arrived at this net positive impact.