Bengaluru/Wellington — Facebook on Wednesday banned praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism, a move that drew qualified approval from New Zealand, where a massacre of 50 people in mosques was live streamed earlier in March . Civil rights groups have said social media giants have failed to confront extremism and that was under the spotlight in March after a suspected white supremacist broadcast live footage of his attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand. Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet’s YouTube have been under pressure to remove white supremacist and neo-Nazi content from their platforms, along with fake news and other types of abusive posts. In response, Facebook has beefed-up its content monitoring teams and taken down event pages that were used to promote and organise rallies by white supremacist groups.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who has called for social media platforms to be accountable for what users post, said material c...

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