2 years after banning other Canadian hate groups, Facebook deletes Quebec far-right group
CBC
The company that owns Facebook and Instagram says it has banned Quebec far-right group Atalante from its platforms.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Meta said the decision was made in accordance with its policy on dangerous individuals and organizations.
The statement, sent by public relations firm Tact, noted the group was removed because of its affiliation with hate groups and appropriation of hate group symbols, including Nazi symbols and salutes.
"In an effort to prevent and mitigate real-world damage, we do not allow organizations or individuals who claim a violent mission or who are engaged in violence to be present on Meta technologies," said a spokesperson for Meta, who was quoted in the statement but not named.
Tact said the company has also deleted groups affiliated with Atalante on the platforms.
Atalante's page also featured displays of support for the Italian fascist group CasaPound.
Under a post endorsing "national preference," the idea of prioritizing natural-born citizens in the allocation of resources, multiple commentators wrote "les nôtres avant les autres" — "us before them."
Moreover, the group's leader was charged with criminal harassment and intimidation, in connection with a confrontation at the Montreal offices of Vice Media in 2018.
The move by Meta comes two and a half years after Facebook banned several other organizations and individuals it found to be engaged in promoting hate, including Faith Goldy, Kevin Goudreau, Canadian Nationalist Strikeforce, Wolves of Odin and the Soldiers of Odin (also known as Canadian Infidels), in 2019.
At the time, several people noticed similar groups based in Quebec hadn't been banned.
Experts wondered if Facebook lacked the necessary language skills needed to identify accounts circulating extremist content in Quebec.
"These groups express themselves mainly in French, and maybe [Facebook] doesn't have enough francophones, or algorithms capable of doing the job," David Morin, a University of Sherbrooke professor who holds a UNESCO chair in the prevention of radicalization, told CBC in 2019.
The company says it has now partnered with the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa to launch the "Global Network Against Hate," a five-year program to help fund research on how violent extremism based on ethnicity, race, gender and other forms of prejudice is spread and how to eradicate it. .
It also says it expanded its "Dangerous Individuals and Organizations Policy" in August 2020.