Facebook says Blair Cottrell’s post did not advocate, depict, or state an intent to commit a crime

Blair Cottrell has been banned so many times by Facebook the far-right extremist appears to know how to walk the thin line between inciting violence and talking about violence.

After his interview with Sky News was removed by the broadcaster and he was banned from returning to the network, Cottrell said “anyone would think I went on the air and spat in the face of the presenter then raped the entire staff on my way out”.

While referring casually to rape en masse is offensive by any reasonable person’s standards, it does not violate Facebook’s community standards.

Facebook told Guardian Australia the post was reviewed by the content team but was not removed because it did not advocate, depict, or state an intent to commit a crime.



Sources said Cottrell, who has been banned by Facebook for as long as six months at a time, has become savvy at knowing what he can get away with and remain on the platform.

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He has talked about using video rather than text and images to communicate with his followers because videos are more likely to fly under the radar.

Facebook says some people “express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in facetious and non-serious ways” and this is not the same as directly inciting violence.



When it came to Twitter, Cottrell’s post did cross a line, and he has been banned from posting for a week, although his account is still live and he can browse Twitter and send direct messages.

Cottrell’s tweet on Tuesday named Sky presenter Laura Jayes and was more direct than his Facebook post: “I might as well have raped @ljayes on the air, not only would she have been happier with that but the reaction would’ve been the same.”

Twitter reviewed his posts after they were brought to attention by the media and decided he had violated Twitter’s rules.

“We do not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons however as per the Twitter rules, you may not direct abuse at someone by sending unwanted sexual content, objectifying them in a sexually explicit manner, or otherwise engaging in sexual misconduct,” a spokesman told Guardian Australia.



“When we identify an account or tweet that violates the Twitter rules, there are a range of enforcement options we may pursue. These include limiting tweet visibility, requiring a user to delete a tweet, placing accounts in read-only mode or, for more serious or repeat offences, permanently suspending an account.”

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A professor of internet studies at Deakin University, Matthew Allen, says the social media platforms have open platform policies that often result in the publication of material that violates community standards in Australia.



“The default business model for all social media platforms is to encourage as much use as possible and to permit users to do and say almost anything, and then to react when negative publicity about such posts outweighs the revenue generated by having an open platform,” Allen told Guardian Australia.

Allen does not believe the global media platforms have got the balance right but cautions against tougher regulation.

“That’s the philosophical challenge we face if we were to overreact to largely inappropriate commentary. Is it not better to know that Cottrell thinks and says those things?”

Allen says social media has joined the mainstream media as a powerful force in determining community standards but its decisions about appropriate content are unregulated and secretive.



“Social media organisations are now one of the primary regulators of speech in society and, as events of the last year have shown, they have a poor track record of proactively managing speech which may be deemed inappropriate,” he says.

Allen says there is so much content on social media it is impossible to keep abreast of it, although the platforms are now using artificial intelligence to flag problematic behaviour.

“There is a concern if they were to be more active regulators because they do not necessarily embody community standards in the other direction,” he says. “How would we frame it when we think they’re doing too much?

“It’s a very difficult balancing act. But the challenge is that underpinning all of this is the profit motive. And the capacity of these organisations to manage and mandate their activities based on hypothetical global norms rather than national standards.”

Access to the social media networks is vital to people like Cottrell, who encourages people to contact him on social media for more information about his political activities.

The social media platforms are slow to act and all have different thresholds. Just take the recent case of Alex Jones.

Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify have all banned the American conspiracy theorist from their platforms, saying he promoted hate speech and violence, but Twitter has allowed Jones to continue posting on the platform.

Its founder, Jack Dorsey, said the company was committed to promoting “a healthy conversational environment” – which included Jones because he “hasn’t violated our rules” .