A recent news story where Facebook has banned Britain First page and the regulation of the Media.

1. Maisie Bloor

2. Facebook has recently removed the pages of a anti-Islamic group, Britain
First and its leaders. Facebook claimed that the group had repeatedly
violated its community standards. Earlier in the month the leader and the
deputy leader, Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen, we placed in jail after
being found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment. The Facebook
page had over two million people liking the page and they had a large
following of people. Britain First decided to ignore their final warning from
Facebook about posting material that broke its community standards. It is
understood that Britain First broke Facebook’s Anti-hate rules. Britain First
had offending posts that included:
• A photo of the group’s leaders with the caption “Islam phobic and Proud”
• A caption comparing Muslim immigrants with animals
• Multiple videos posted deliberately to incite hateful comments against
Muslims
Facebook did say that they were an open platform for all ideas but that
political views should be expressed without hate. They directly said
“People can express robust and controversial opinions without needing to
denigrate others on the basis of who they are”. Facebook will remove hate
speech’s against people based on their race, religion, gender and other
characteristics.

3. • Press regulation-
At the moment the press is being regulated by a non-government
voluntary regulation body called the Press Complaints Commission
(PCC). This is made up of representatives of major publishers it is also
funded by annual levy (tax), it charges newspapers and magazines. It
has no statutory/legal powers making it a ‘toothless tiger’.
• Film Regulation-
The BBFC is a non-governmental organisation funded by the film
industry, responsible for the national classification and censorship of
films in the UK. It was actually originally called the British Board of Film
Censorship when it was first established in 1921. Another area giving
cause for concern is the proliferation of the Internet with sites like
YouTube, Facebook, etc. Technically, anybody could watch any of the
videos on YouTube or post on Facebook since they are all unclassified
or censored. However, this defeats the point of the BBFC, since the
amount of people watching films is growing all the time. The new wave
of technology means that theoretically, a young child could watch
material extremely inappropriate for their age.

4. Facebook banning Britain First’s page and the leaders own
pages is due to the fact that people on Facebook do not
agree with their beliefs and have made complaints. But
another reason is because the Government would have to
eventually step in due to the fact that Britain First is using
the social media platform to incite hate.