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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

The SWP is not massive. It's never been massive. Current paid-up membership is maybe four figures.

It's considered eccentric, comically cliched, ineffectual, and frankly irrelevant by virtually everyone on the British left.

It's the very definition of fringe.

Which is why banning the SWP sets a very bad example. Especially when there are far more dangerous organisations on the British far right which Facebook seems happy to host.

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So then it would seem, this is a great "beta test" for FB & Co. That is, pick a fringe meaningless group - but one with enough name recognition - and ban them to grease the skids of societal expectations. The group is small and fringe so few will feel the relevance which makes it a fitting target for FB and its ilk to normalize banning.

Facebook has banned, unbanned and rebanned UK registered minor political parties before. (Britain First, a far right party that was only marginally less hopeless at winning votes than the SWP but very effective at getting Facebook likes back when it still had a page) The world didn't begin in January.

Another view is that they're banning it to show that banning organisations according to some policy isn't effective and therefore they shouldn't be policing it 'because, how could they?'.

Or it’s the smallish act that reveals FBs true pro-far right bias.

FB skews conservative in content because that's who uses and invests in it, not who staffs it (primarily coastal, urban elites).

There have been numerous stories about FB employees lifting their noses at the platform's contents and users only to be reminded by Zuck that those are their users, and they serve them no matter who they are.

The Facebook PAC also funds politicians like Andy Biggs, Michael Burgess, Mike Kelly, Tom Emmer and many others, so it's not just about the user base.

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