Tommy Robinson ban doesn't solve Facebook's politics problem
Thursday 28 February 2019 03:40, UK
Rowland Manthorpe, technology correspondent
Imagine, for a moment, you run a supermarket - a vast multinational chain selling goods around the globe. Reports come in that one of your most popular products in a key market is proving violently toxic to certain customers.
Yet, even as those reports continue to grow in urgency, that products sells in ever greater numbers, and even expands internationally. What do you do?
Well, if you're Facebook, you wait years, ignoring every plea; then, unexpectedly, ban the product completely.
That product being, of course, Tommy Robinson, whose public accounts on Facebook and Instagram were permanently deleted on Tuesday.
The move had an air of finality. With the exception of YouTube and Gab, Robinson is now banned from every major social network, as well as PayPal. By acting after so long, Facebook (which also owns Instagram) had, it seemed, put an end to this sorry saga's latest chapter.
Yet, after all this time, the decision prompted more questions than answers. In particular: why now? Robinson had been active recently, plugging his Panodrama documentary, which purported to expose corruption at the BBC, but no more than usual. What had changed? Why the sudden shift?
In the briefing it gave journalists, Facebook hid behind process. Robinson had been warned on 25 January, it said, for violating community standards with a series of posts, including one calling Muslims "filthy scum bags" and another urging people to terrorise and behead those who follow the Koran.
By this account, the ban was pure logic, an if-then construct on which the catch had been sprung.
Why now? No reason. Just bureaucracy functioning as usual.
The public statement the social network put out was only marginally more enlightening.
After explaining that Robinson had been banned for "posting material that uses dehumanising language and calls for violence targeted at Muslims," the firm's spokesperson continued: "This is not a decision we take lightly, but individuals and organisations that attack others on the basis of who they are have no place on Facebook or Instagram."
At first glance, the words were meaningless, the hollow echo of corporate regret.
But, to me at least, the fact that Facebook didn't take the decision lightly rang very true.
Because, alone in the world, Facebook truly understood just how popular its poisonous product was.
On Facebook, Tommy Robinson wasn't big. He was gigantic.
The numbers alone tell the story.
According to analytics firm EzyInsights, whose founder, Steve El-Sharawy, was one of the first to appreciate the scale of Robinson's audience on Facebook, in the year leading up to his ban, Robinson, who had just over a million followers, generated 17.6 million clicks, likes and shares on the social network, an average of 47,600 a day.
By comparison, during the same period Theresa May generated 1.2 million Facebook clicks, likes and shares. Jeremy Corbyn generated only 5.7 million, despite having slightly more followers than Robinson.
If anything, those statistics underestimate Robinson's reach. They don't capture how many people watched his live-streamed videos, for instance, or for how long - although, in recent times, that had become one of his most popular outlets (remember him live-streaming his own arrest?).
Of the 55% of Britons who recognise the name Tommy Robinson, according to a recent YouGov poll, 37% have seen or heard one of his videos on social media - a number rising to 57% among 18 to 24-year-olds.
Thanks to his popularity on Facebook, the Robinson brand - for it is a brand, the latest Stephen Yaxley Lennon marketing offer, after Andrew McMaster, Paul Harris and Wayne King failed to catch on - has been spreading globally, turning him into what anti-racism charity Hope Not Hate's latest State of Hate report called "a bonafide superstar of the international far right."
It has also offered Lennon greater scope to spread hate and harm. When you're gigantic on Facebook, you don't need to rant and rave (although he did plenty of that).
As any Instagram celebrity will tell you, when your fans are in on the game, a knowing hint will be twice as effective.
This is what the literalist, liberal parsing of Lennon's utterances fails to appreciate.
Given Facebook's lengthy inaction, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the motivation was political - the government is preparing to bring in new laws to force social media firms to deal with hate speech
Examining his latest posts in a theological attempt to pinpoint the exact instance of hate speech is futile, unless you appreciate, as his followers certainly do, the long history behind them.
It is like coming across a policy paper from the Home Office and exclaiming, after a brief glance: "This doesn't look like a hostile environment to me!"
If you are looking for the cold reality of hate speech, ask the 15-year-old Syrian refugee who was attacked after Lennon falsely accused him of leading an attack against a white girl. Or the personal trainer who was bombarded with racist abuse after Lennon revealed she had set up a fitness class for Muslim women on his Instagram page.
But although these instances are new, the intent, and the behaviour, is very old. Which brings us back to the original question: why now?
Given Facebook's lengthy inaction, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the motivation was political. The government is preparing to bring in new laws to force social media firms to deal with hate speech.
The UK may possibly be heading towards another Brexit referendum. After other similar bans, the mainstream media pressure was mounting.
Yet this kind of speculation only serves to highlight a bigger problem. After years of underhand dealings, Facebook feels less like a neutral judge, more like a player in the game. We rely on it, but we feel queasy about its power. We assume, fairly, perhaps, that its motives are cynical.
That is why it's hard to believe this latest ban will be the end of Lennon, a figure who plays on precisely this lack of trust.
Five or six hours after the ban, I spoke to Lennon briefly on the phone.
Sounding angry and upset, he called Facebook "liars" and the media "fake news". He ranted about the lack of reception for his Panodrama documentary (his desire to be recognised as a legitimate journalist is as key to his psyche as Trump's desire to be praised in the pages of the New York Times).
Then, after a minute or two, he said: "All you're going to do is enrage and anger the British public even more, at a time when everyone feels that you're taking our free speech away, at a time when everyone feels you're ignoring our democratic votes. You are building a lot of resentment."
That is not a good reason not to ban him, but with the political situation as volatile as it's ever been, it is a good reason to worry about what comes next.
We need to solve this problem, before it gets worse.
Facebook: take this seriously. Our politics can't handle being your product.
Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Paste BN editors and correspondents, published every morning.
Previously on Sky Views: Beth Rigby - The band of 11 who broke May and Corbyn on Brexit