Facebook's Secret Censorship Rules Protect White Men From Hate Speech But Not Black Children (propublica.org)

Sidney Fussell from Gizmodo summarizes a report from ProPublica, which brings to light dozens of training documents used by Facebook to train moderators on hate speech: As the trove of slides and quizzes reveals, Facebook uses a warped, one-sided reasoning to balance policing hate speech against users' freedom of expression on the platform. This is perhaps best summarized by the above image from one of its training slideshows, wherein Facebook instructs moderators to protect "White Men," but not "Female Drivers" or "Black Children." Facebook only blocks inflammatory remarks if they're used against members of a "protected class." But Facebook itself decides who makes up a protected class, with lots of clear opportunities for moderation to be applied arbitrarily at best and against minoritized people critiquing those in power (particularly white men) at worst -- as Facebook has been routinely accused of. According to the leaked documents, here are the group identifiers Facebook protects: Sex, Religious affiliation, National origin, Gender identity, Race, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Serious disability or disease. And here are those Facebook won't protect: Social class, continental origin, appearance, age, occupation, political ideology, religions, countries. Subsets of groups -- female drivers, Jewish professors, gay liberals -- aren't protected either, as ProPublica explains: White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected.

Comments

Shouldn't there only be one trait?

[Anonymous Coward]

Human-ness?

Anyway, religion shouldn't be protected, because anyone who is STUPID ENOUGH to believe in magical floating fairies should get any abuse coming to them.

Re:Who'd a Thunk?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh bullshit, white guys are still have more power and prestige in society than anyone else.

Says the SJW, following it up with some good SJW-approved character assassination. Well done.

It's a nice bit of conflation, though. While it's still true that the most powerful tend to be white males, it doesn't follow that all white males have more power and prestige than anyone else. It'd mean that any random white male redneck is more respectable and powerful than, say, mr. Barrack Obama. And that is clearly not true.

Me, I think that the mere existence of "dindus" says very bad things about a group choosing to paint themselves downtrodden and not, you know, become powerful and respectable and successful in their own right. Likewise, it's never the SJWs that improve anyone's lot, it's always them that loudly shout someone else must do something. Whatever for? Build your own future.

Complaining there are still more whites in power than other colours, well, the demographics are shifting and the power networks will have to shift with them, even if they lag a bit. Don't ask for equal outcomes. Equal opportunity you pretty much already have, if you choose to take it. This is why SJWs continue to complain about inconsequential things, and will never admit they are. They'd have to wake up and smell the coffee, and *gasp* take responsibility for their own lot.