With most domestic U.S. terror arrests relating to white supremacists rather than radical Islam, Facebook is promising more action to boot them out.
The company has also launched a new independent oversight board based on the draft charter it released at the beginning of the year. The aim, it says, is to improve its decision-making and make it more accountable.
Facebook uses techniques such as content-matching and machine learning to identify terrorist content.
"While our intent was always to use these techniques across different dangerous organizations, we initially focused on global terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda," the company explains in a blog post.
"This has led to the removal of more than 26 million pieces of content related global terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda in the last two years, 99% of which we proactively identified and removed before anyone reported it to us."
However, the problem with techniques like this is that the systems need material to be trained. And, says Facebook, it was a lack of first-person footage of violent events that meant that the Christchurch shootings weren't automatically flagged by the system.
"That’s why we’re working with government and law enforcement officials in the U.S. and U.K. to obtain camera footage from their firearms training programs–providing a valuable source of data to train our systems," says the firm.
"With this initiative, we aim to improve our detection of real-world, first-person footage of violent events and avoid incorrectly detecting other types of footage such as fictional content from movies or video games."
However, combating white supremacism requires more than simply taking down content; it means defining terrorist groups too. The company has a description that includes terrorist activity; organized hate; mass or serial murder; human trafficking; and organized violence or criminal activity.
However, while there's never any outcry when Facebook bans an Islamic terrorist group, the same can't be said about the far right. The company's extremely aware that it needs to be able to justify its decisions across the board.
And that's why, presumably, it's launched a new independent oversight board, based on an updated version of its draft charter.
The board, consisting of 40 or so 'diverse and qualified' members, will issue advisory opinions on Facebook’s content policies, as well as ruling on 'important' individual items of content.
It's the same strategy as the company's using with its planned Libra cryptocurrency: set up an independent oversight body to try and refute accusations of vested interests or bias. It doesn't seem to be working all that well in the case of Libra, with European regulators threatening to ban it altogether.
In this case, though, it could make a difference. Today, Facebook faces the Senate Commerce Committee, which is to grill the firm on the ways it deals with violent content. The new announcement could help tip the balance in its favor.
