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Facebook Employees Tried To Remove Trump Posts As Hate Speech (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: Facebook employees pushed to remove some of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Facebook posts -- such as one proposing the ban of Muslims from entering the U.S. -- from the service as hate speech that violated the giant social network's policies, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. The decision not to remove the Trump posts was made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the newspaper reported. Employees complained that Facebook was changing the rules for Trump and some who review content on Facebook threatened to quit. "When we review reports of content that may violate our policies, we take context into consideration. That context can include the value of political discourse," Facebook said in an emailed statement. "Many people are voicing opinions about this particular content and it has become an important part of the conversation around who the next U.S. president will be. For those reasons, we are carefully reviewing each report and surrounding context relating to this content on a case by case basis." Senior members of Facebook's policy team posted more details on its policy on Friday: "In the weeks ahead, we're going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest -- even if they might otherwise violate our standards."

20 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. The system is fixed hillary for prison! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The system is fixed hillary for prison!

  2. Let's ban ideas we don't like by mveloso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's ban ideas we don't like because uncomfortable ideas make us uncomfortable. The world should be a safe space, one where we can focus on how great we are instead of possibly thinking about the disturbing thoughts of others.

  3. So have they been fired? by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If said employees feel free to delete others posts, it's not hard to imagine they are reading private messages, monitoring to make sure BadThought is stamped out...

    Have these employees been fired? If not, why not?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Enforcing immigration law is not inherently xenophobic. Deporting all illegals and building a wall to hinder their return sound perfectly reasonable to me.

  5. I would believe it. by bmo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm quite left of center and the hate for Hillary among my group is probably as bad as the Trump fan hate for Hillary, and people have been complaining about posts disappearing.

    Editing content makes you responsible for the content itself, as you are exerting control over it.

    I believe practices like this are ridiculously dumb.

    Especially since I consider "hate speech" a great idiot filter. It allows me to keep my friends list trimmed. Just like a Confederate flag is, or Trump signs in the yard. But that's my own choosing. I don't want Facebook choosing for me.

    Yeah, I know, if it's free you are the product. The problem is that the telnet chat that everyone used has been abandoned (even though it's still up after all these years).

    --
    BMO

  6. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by ArtemaOne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trump is a conservative? That's a riot. I know he's a Republican (today), but he doesn't hold very conservative views.

  7. Re:Hmmmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    By squelching his speech content

    Content that was in violation of Facebook's then-current terms and conditions

    you're both tacitly endorsing a specific party as a platform

    Which party is that? Democratic, Libertarian, or Green? American Independent, American Socialist, or yet another of the political parties?

    a big no no from Zuckerberg

    And changing the rules so that the original candidate no longer is violating Facebook's terms isn't tacitly endorsing that candidate or their party?

    and stripping people of newsworthy information

    Because Facebook, first of all, positions their service as a primary source of news, and is completely not just a place to keep in contact with people that you already know, kinda like a "social networking site."

    Needless to say

    But say it you will...

    They were moderating content on Facebook, a job not relegated to rocket scientists, and failed at it.

    They attempted to apply the rules, and then were told the rules didn't apply to that particular candidate, and so it's the people who were enforcing the rules who failed?

    Hey, does your last name happen to be Conway?

  8. Story doesn't fact-check against itself. by kfsone · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Employees" and "pushed for". According to Google, Facebook had over 12,500 employees in 2015. So some employees felt strongly enough about Trump's posts to raise a discussion, and the company said "No". Zero conspiracy. Nobody stole the secret codes to the hidden filter chamber.

    Basically, this articles takes Facebook taking things seriously, doing what I think most of us would hope it would do, and tries to paint it as beastial. I would *hope* that Facebook /doesn't/ hire based on political perspective, so I would hope it has employees of all ends of the political perspective and seeks to maintain a neutral stance. That doesn't mean that it's employees shouldn't be able to raise their concerns internally either way.

    --
    -- A change is as good as a reboot.
  9. Anyone else find it amusing by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that this election is so bat-$h!t (yeah, I know, it's the Internet, I can swear, but I like this better) that Facebook has to change their posting guidelines to allow what's become "normal" political speech?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  10. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by tsotha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As the candidate running for president has a leadership role in the party, and leadership makes the party views, they are by definition conservative views when expressed as view of conservative leadership.

    No, actually, that's not how it works. Trump is not a conservative. The Republican party, which, although it does include some conservative politicians, is not run by conservatives.

    They are ugly, selfish, repugnant views that most people find abhorrent, but they cannot simply be written off as "no true scotsman.

    You might be surprised to find people on the other side of the aisle find your views just as ugly, selfish, and repugnant, though they aren't far enough down the authoritarian rabbit hole to try to censor your speech. They will come around eventually, though, if you and your ilk persist.

  11. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I believe it was that, given the the religious violence currently going on in the Muslim community, we should have a temporary hiatus on foreign Muslims entering the country until we can re-evaluate our immigration policies to better evaluate the likelihood of foreigners committing violence while here.

    Again, sounds prudent to me. Foreigners have no automatic right to enter the US. It's a privilege, which may be restricted or withdrawn.

  12. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's use full context here. Banning Muslims from extremest hot spots until we can improve how we vet them. Not much different from banning German men of military age from immigrating while at war with Germany.

    Rather than playing the Democrat's hate card to always try to suppress the Republican vote, let's have an honest discussion on what the proposed policy was actually about. Let's use the full context and implied reasoning. Not the political soundbites.

  13. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Citizens have rights in this country. We don't have to extend those same rights to foreign nationals.

  14. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everything you are saying is backwards.

    Conservatism, as it's defined today by empirical evidence and voting records, is an extremist institution that supports terrorizing and torturing the public, a state-controlled media, totalitarianism, fascism, and income confiscation through tax and public debt. The democratic party also believes in these same things. These are black and white beliefs when you get down to it.

    The current RNC candidate is, by comparison, very moderate.

    Newborn males in the US have a 50\50 shot of having kids themselves, based the analysis of PEW and GAO research into marriage and birth rates; we've never dipped below 90% since the stats started getting collected in the 50's. Half of men with over an 80th percentile income have not procreated; if you want to know why there's such a market for hookers and porn, that's why. Under present conditions, migrants fleeing 3rd world countries can expect they and the next generation coming here will never escape poverty. Immigration, today, is a discussion about eugenics; it's about foreigners having more desirable genetic and social traits than the domestic population does, and the one deeming this is the "ruling elites".

  15. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by execthis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wanting to keep out members of a "religion" that openly-stated goal of which is the takeover of the world, and which is fundamentally incompatible and in conflict with many of the most basic principles of your society makes perfect sense. In fact, not doing so seems completely insane.

    What a lot of people don't get is that many of the people in their beloved minority groups wouldn't hesitate in a second to completely destroy many of the freedoms that we've fought so hard to accomplish. And quite frankly seeing women wearing that full-face-cover head veil thing (there's at least one who lives near me) makes me sick.

    Islam teaches that women are literally the property of their husbands, no different than cattle. That should make anyone sick.

  16. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by laddiebuck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Guess that would have been a 'no' on Albert Einstein then. Good job.

  17. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by rahvin112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Arguing a federal judge cannot fairly adjudicate a case before him because of his ethnicity is the very definition of racism. The textbook definition mind you of what Racism is.

  18. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    The threat is growing. And the point is to have an actual discussion or debate on the risks versus just outright dismissal with the Left's favorite retort -- racist, bigoted, hateful, et el. Why can't people have an actual discussion on the merits rather than calling names?

  19. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Enforcing immigration law is not inherently xenophobic. Deporting all illegals and building a wall to hinder their return sound perfectly reasonable to me.

    My wife is from the Philippines, and most Filipinos that I know are actually kind of pissed about the "illegals". When you come here legally, it costs a bunch of money, if you have a work permit it has to be renewed in person annually, and going through the process of getting a green card or citizenship is also expensive. And you get harassed if you don't do everything correctly. You (the American citizens) would be embarrassed if you knew how some folks are treated when they simply want to come here legally.

    So, yeah, there's a little resentment when people come here without that sort of pain.

    At the same time, we have friends who are illegals and we personally know that most go through other kinds of pain - like walking 1000 miles through the desert - to get here.

  20. Re:I don't agree that these are "conservative" vie by lgw · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wanting to keep out members of a "religion" that openly-stated goal of which is the takeover of the world

    Islam is a political philosophy of conquest that happens to contain a religion. It's one of several political philosophies that we could live without.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.