“Civil rights groups urge Facebook to fix ‘racially biased’ moderation system”
“Co-signed by a coalition of more than 70 social and racial justice organizations, the letter urged Facebook to adopt reforms that would better target abusive content and harassment but also stop censoring political speech…
The corporation has repeatedly been accused of censorship in recent months, including of users critical of Donald Trump, of historic war photos, of citizens live-streaming encounters with police, of journalists who expose racism and of famous artwork with nudity.
But users who report violent and racist language and overt threats often have a hard time getting Facebook to respond. Critics argue that with both censorship and harassment, Facebook only corrects errors in high-profile cases covered by the media, making use of the platform a daily nightmare for many regular users, especially people of color targeted by trolls…
Cyril said the lack of diversity within the corporation was partly to blame. Black employees accounted for just 3% of senior US leadership, according to 2016 figures.
“When you already have a company that woefully underrepresents black people and communities of color in general on their staff, you are challenged to respond to concerns of racism.””
This happened to a friend of mine who started a Tumblr pairing images of the Trump Presidency with quotes from The Handmaid’s Tale. She got it fixed pretty quickly, but it was an absurd moment.
And on the other side, I’ve seen people try to report hateful content and groups and be ignored.
It’s not just some absolute goal of fostering a “diversity of opinions” it’s also about recognizing that some “opinions” carry terrible moral burdens that our society has (theoretically) rejected because of the violence they cause.
