Facebook tried to turn a ban of far-right figures into a PR opportunity, but it backfired

• Facebook is barring a bunch of far-right figures from its apps, including Alex Jones.
• But the company briefed journalists and made the announcement before the bans came into effect, giving the figures time to respond.
• The incident raises questions as to why Facebook decided to try and organize a public-relations opportunity, rather than immediately taking action against the accounts.

Facebook is barring a host of far-right figures and conspiracy theorists — but the move hasn’t gone entirely to plan.

On Thursday, the California social network announced that it was taking action against a bunch of controversial figures on its apps, including Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Louis Farrakhan, and the conspiracy site Infowars.

The company also briefed a handful of news outlets under “embargo” (meaning the companies would not publish their stories until a specified time) in advance of the announcements, including The Washington Post and The Atlantic. But when the articles were published, many of the accounts were still up — giving some of the targeted figures the opportunity to warn their followers of their impending bans and to direct them to follow them on other platforms.

Yiannopoulos, the far-right provocateur and journalist, shared a screenshot of a headline about the ban on Instagram and urged his followers to subscribe to an email mailing list. (Disclosure: In 2014, I wrote some freelance articles for The Kernel, a website owned by Milo Yiannopoulos at the time.)