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Facebook Apologizes After Flagging Declaration of Independence As Hate Speech (nymag.com)
To celebrate this week's holiday, The Vindicator, a small newspaper in Texas, posted sections of the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident." "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." Yadda, yadda. You get the idea. But a section of the text containing the phrase "Indian Savages" set off Facebook's hate-speech flags. The post was then temporarily taken down by Facebook, Business Insider reports. From a report: He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. After The Vindicator ran a story on the censorship, Facebook corrected the mistake. "The post was removed by mistake and restored as soon as we looked into it. We process millions of reports each week, and sometimes we get things wrong," a Facebook spokesperson said. And honestly, as far as Facebook getting things wrong, this is an ideal "mistake."
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Natureâ(TM)s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. â" That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, â" That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. â" Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, i
See that "Preview" button?
In context of the 21st century, I think if it were written today plenty of people WOULD have a problem with the sentence "Indian Savages". Obviously the declaration of Independence wasn't intended as a "hate piece" but by today's morality I can't blame Facebook for automatically filtering it out per algorithm.
I'm not a fan of Facebook or censorship (although I think a private entity like Facebook has a right to keep content non-objectionable ON THEIR SITE- but not off it) but I think there is nothing wrong with Facebook's algorithm in this case- it did what it was written to do- it caught unwanted language on it's system.
I'm pretty sure a lot of Mark Twain's work would rightly get blocked too.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Because of the clear leftward lean of Tech/social media companies, there will be a natural inclined to suspect every thing they decide to remove from their systems or block. This is a self created position that is the result of past actions that seemed pretty clearly anti-one-political-party.
I think people understand that this sort of thing is possible and can accept that mistakes happen, but that cant be accepted when the organizations like Facebook have burned up whatever good faith they had.
They do care...they care enough to bitch and moan constantly AFTER the election, they just can't be bothered to get off their couch and do something about it on election day.
The Declaration of Independence does contain hate speech against Native Americans. These are the same Native Americans that the SCOTUS has sided with regarding US violation of multiple treaties. Here's one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The language in that document regarding Native Americans was hateful, racist and unjust then, and it still is now.
Facebook's algorithm was right.
This doesn't mean Facebook hates the US, or freedom, or white people. This does mean that our past, present, and future are full of moral choices that define us.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
How many of you remember when NPR tweeted out the Declaration of Independence line by line and a bunch of Trump supporters got mad because they thought it was about Trump? It happened last year, and it happened again this year.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/julia...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Do other countries have such guilt for existing as the U.S. seems to have?
Most countries and borders that exist today are there because of war and taking from natives.
I reached this one section and immediately thought of Beevis and Butthead:
”He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people”
Hehe. Hehe. “Manly Firmness” hehe. Hehe.
#DeleteChrome
Billionaires some times forget what happens to Kings in America.
That's weird. I would have expected it would be because you do things like randomly repeating words in a way that makes the sentence nonsensical :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Anzac regions... South America.... also have pushed out native populations. Africa and the Middle East long history of enslaving each other and fighting each other. Same with Asia. Europe has more than it's fair share of bloody hands.
Yes, every country is guilty of at least some atrocity.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
>"We don't have to stand behind it today. We shouldn't."
Indeed. I wouldn't ever deny the horrible things that happened in history. But I won't ignore the great and wonderful things either. What happened to the Native Americans was way beyond unfortunate- something that inevitably seems to happen whenever ANY more technologically advanced culture on the move encounters another. History is full of it, all over the world. Going back far enough, I am sure my European ancestors were slaves or slave owners, thieves and saints, nobility and commoners, murderers and heroes, good and immoral, poor and rich, bright and dim.
And, yet, a wonderful country WAS born, and set forth ideals far beyond what they could accomplish at the time. I remember the past, but also choose to look forward, knowing *we* (none of us) are responsible for what happened before we were born. Trying to hide or embellish where we have been doesn't help, but neither does demanding reparations.
I choose to believe in the ability of our country to overcome adversity. It is the freedom that was born from the Declaration of Independence and cemented in the Constitution's Bill of Rights that enabled us to become one of the best countries on earth. I would hate to see that all go away in the name of safety, convenience, or not offending anyone.
They have property rights same as everyone else. Don't be a spaz. The fact that reservations are designed to be a Communist Utopia is irrelevant to the individual rights of the natives themselves.
Those who prefer a true capitalist community tend to move off the rez and live elsewhere. Those who prefer the "traditional native society" tend to stay there. We don't have some berlin-wall type structure keeping them from finding a better life on the other side; they have the freedom to choose.
Makes sense. Kinda how the phrase "white supremacist" clearly implies that all white people are supremacists. Or how "Islamic militant" is obviously a deceleration that all Muslims are violent terrorists.
Oh wait ...
"rightly"
There is no reason to block Mark Twain.
Listen here, I"m no right-winger, but facts are FACTS:
1) People were racist in the past
2) a lot of people
3) and they tortured and they maimed and they killed and they raped
4) and they wrote fiction, nonfiction, history, and philosophy about it
This is our inheritance as human beings. Any notion of "rightly blocking" racism, violence, sexism, etc. is nothing more or less than book burning.
If a politician today says something racist, by all means don't vote for them.
But if Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson says something racist, and you decide that this means that we have to erase Mark Twain or Thomas Jefferson from history, all I have to say is: human history belongs to all of us, and it's both unpleasant and educational. So a big fuck you to the book burners.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
When the settlers came, they killed off a huge amount of indians via disease. You can read Squanto's account of America after his return; a land that was full of people was basically a ghost town.
It's crazy, but disease probably wiped out an order of magnitude more people than the US did.
Fake news is not an imaginary thing.
When only 7% of journalists are Republicans in a country as evenly divided as ours, there is NO WAY the news is unbiased or biased in favor of the right.
When those almost totally left wing reporters then provide coverage of a Republican president that is more than 90% negative even as the economy is booming and consumer confidence is at an 18 year high it's a sign that something is off-balance in the newsrooms.
When those same left wing journalists (who insist they are "main stream" and unbiased) make error after error after error against that Republican president but somehow amazingly not in his favor, after spending 8 years performing virtual analingus on Obama, it's a sign of a problem.
You can whine and complain all you want that people to your political right believe that much of the "mainstream" news is actually just fake propaganda, but they have more ammunition for their beliefs than you have for yours.
Get back to me when the "journalists" currently panicking that ONE former Fox news reporter is a State Dept spokesperson and ONE former Fox News producer is about to take the White House communications director job decide to retroactively panic at the HUNDREDS of Google people who went back-and-forth between White House jobs under Obama and their Google jobs, or the numerous ties between Obama admin people and ALL the non-Fox news networks. Try looking up all those Obama-era media connections... if you have an honest bone in your body you'll be shocked.
Well the Declaration of Independence was "fighting words" that started a war. The 1/3 of the population that wished to remain loyal British subjects likely did consider it "hate speech", plus a few folks on the other side of the Atlantic, and oh yeah them Canadians too.
But yeah. a phrase or two in there likely triggered a filter and/or facebook employee.