“Facebook’s Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men from Hate Speech But Not Black Children”
“A trove of internal documents reviewed by ProPublica sheds new light on the secret guidelines that Facebook’s censors use to distinguish between hate speech and legitimate political expression. The documents reveal the rationale behind seemingly inconsistent decisions. For instance, Higgins’ incitement to violence passed muster because it targeted a specific sub-group of Muslims — those that are “radicalized” — while Delgado’s post was deleted for attacking whites in general…
While Facebook was credited during the 2010–2011 “Arab Spring” with facilitating uprisings against authoritarian regimes, the documents suggest that, at least in some instances, the company’s hate-speech rules tend to favor elites and governments over grassroots activists and racial minorities. In so doing, they serve the business interests of the global company, which relies on national governments not to block its service to their citizens…
“Sadly,” the rules are “incorporating this color-blindness idea which is not in the spirit of why we have equal protection,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor and expert on information privacy at the University of Maryland. This approach, she added, will “protect the people who least need it and take it away from those who really need it.”…
The rules are one thing. How they’re applied is another. Bickert said Facebook conducts weekly audits of every single content reviewer’s work to ensure that its rules are being followed consistently. But critics say that reviewers, who have to decide on each post within seconds, may vary in both interpretation and vigilance.”
There is a critical lack of self awareness here on the part of some of the people who were creating these guidelines. This is what happens when we live in a country where so many white people think that anti-white racism is a big issue.
Related: “Black Lawmakers Hold a Particular Grievance With Facebook: Racial Exploitation”; “Facebook Has A Severe Problem With Intelligent Black Voices”
