Author: Derek Beres / Source: Big Think
- Last week, Facebook announced it would remove all white nationalist content from its main platform, as well as Instagram.
- When someone posts white nationalist content they will now be redirected to the nonprofit organization, Life After Hate.
- White nationalist groups actively recruit new members on social media platforms, aided by algorithms.
Slavery didn’t simply end when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. It took nearly three years for the ratification of the 13th Amendment to abolish slavey in the United States. Slave owners in Kentucky and Delaware begrudgingly unshackled the men and women they believed to be their property.
Public sentiment steadily grew in favor of abolition, but it was in no way a done deal. Lincoln himself wasn’t an abolitionist when our nation entered the Civil War. The president wasn’t thinking about the freedom of slaves in 1861; his goal was to preserve the union. As he wrote in a letter in 1862,
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”
The “Great Emancipator” pivoted as the war continued. The first attempt to abolish slavery passed in the Senate but failed to garner a two-thirds majority in the House. Abolition was a fight to the end. For most of that time, the majority of Americans were not in favor of ending this run of free and enforced labor.
Ditto Civil Rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was hardly a consensus opinion. Twenty-seven senators voted against it; 126 House members gave a thumbs down. Three months after passage, a majority of Americans (58 percent) supported the law, but nearly a third (31 percent) disapproved, while 10 percent of Americans didn’t know how they felt on the matter. Even then, 68 percent supported “moderate enforcement” compared to the 19 percent that wanted “vigorous enforcement.”
Translation: ease into that “every man is equal” idea. We just can’t move too fast on this freedom issue.
Facebook bans white nationalism on its platforms l Al Jazeera English
Unfortunately for the slow turning of our moral compass, technology moves fast — much faster than our brains are designed to handle. Rather than keeping up, the easiest choice is to fall back into comfortable habits, even if such habits are dangerous. Enter Facebook.
Last week, the advertising giant that…
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