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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.

2 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Re:While the point could be valid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's impossible because it's not possible for them to be victimized in that way. You can say mean things to someone, but that's not the same as racism. You need a society where there is systematic abuse of white men before they could possibly be the victim of hate speech.

    I totally understand why people wouldn't want to accept this. Because it's completely unfair. What applies to one person should be equally applicable to all people. How can we have a society that is so unfair that one class of people can't even be considered a victim.

    A white man can be the target of hate speech if they immigrate to a different culture where they are systematically discriminated against. But I can't think of any examples where a Caucasian is at a significant disadvantage in society across the board. Even in East Asia where some things are difficult for Westerns there are a whole lot of other thing that are easier.

    TL;DR - Having your feelings hurt != hate speech. Now we know who the real snowflakes are.

  2. Re: While the point could be valid by CrybabiesArePeople · · Score: 0, Troll

    Over the land they HAD? I mean I sympathize with them, and wish they never had to live these traumatic and racist events but please don't forget the historical perspective....