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Facebook bans far-right group the Proud Boys
Facebook is banning accounts and groups associated with the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group linked to political violence in the US. Facebook has confirmed the move to TechCrunch, indicating that the group now meets the company's definition of a hate organization or figure. The decision follows an incident that took place in New York earlier in October, where Proud Boys members were involved in a violent attack on protesters, and five members were arrested.
Microsoft threatened to unplug Gab over anti-Semitic posts
After Milo Yiannopoulos got banned from Twitter, he and his followers moved to Gab, a social network priding itself on free speech that has become popular with conservatives and the alt-right. But it appears the platform's hosting provider Microsoft Azure isn't okay with the most extreme views appearing on Gab. Today, the tech giant gave the site two days to pull two posts with anti-Semitic content or it would stop serving it, which could have taken Gab down for weeks or months. They were soon deleted by the individual who made the posts: Far-right Senate candidate Patrick Little.
Pepe The Frog’s creator sues Infowars for copyright infringement
Despite artist Matt Furie's attempts to reclaim his Pepe The Frog character from neo-Nazis, his cartoon is still being used by the far-right. He created Pepe in the early 2000s and has described the character as a "peaceful frog-dude" whose true nature "celebrates peace, togetherness and fun." But in 2015, the far-right began to appropriate Pepe, using him as a representation of hate, white supremacy and anti-Semitism and the character became tied to racists and conspiracy theorists like Richard Spencer and Mike Cernovich. Furie has tried to reclaim Pepe through a #SavePepe campaign and by issuing cease-and-desist notices to those using its image and companies like Amazon, Google and Reddit whose sites hosted infringing content. He even tried to kill off the character last year. Now, he's going after Infowars.
Discord bans a number of alt-right servers
The gaming chat service Discord has reportedly banned several alt-right groups. The move comes six months after the platform shut down racist accounts in the wake of the Charlottesville protests in order to 'take action against white supremacy, nazi ideology and all forms of hate.' But Discord backed away from calling out particular groups that it kicked off its service; Instead, it has removed a number of unnamed groups due to violations of the platform's terms and services, a spokesperson told Engadget in a statement.
Recommended Reading: Apple's original television aspirations
Apple Is a Step Closer to Making Its Own TV Shows David Sims, The Atlantic While the company's television aspirations remain largely a mystery, Apple hired two big names this week to help build its slate of original shows. Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, presidents of Sony Pictures Television, will make the move to Cupertino this summer with experience making hits like Damages, Breaking Bad, Justified and other series. The Atlantic offers a look at what this means for Apple and what we can expect from Eddy Cue & Co. in the months to come.
'Alt-right' site plans a 'fake black person' Twitter campaign
The Daily Stormer, an alt-right website that regularly features racist, sexist and anti-semitic content, claims it has nearly 1,000 "fake black person" Twitter accounts that it plans to use in a "big," upcoming harassment campaign. This is a response to Twitter's recent ban of multiple accounts that distributed white supremacist content and ideas -- many of these banned users are prominent names in racist circles online. The bans are a result of Twitter's attempt to clean up its image with a new set of rules for reporting abuse. The company rolled out these safeguards on Tuesday.
Twitter bans multiple 'alt-right' accounts
In the wake of releasing more tools to combat abuse on its service, Twitter has banned the accounts of a number of "alt-right" users. That includes the head of the National Policy Institute (NPI), Richard Spencer. The think tank describes itself as "dedicated to the heritage, identity and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world." USA Today reports that the purge started with Spencer's verified status being revoked before removing his account (@RichardBSPencer), the NPI's (@npiamerica) and his publication The Radix Journal's (@radixjournal).
