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."

Comments

If it were written today

[Oswald McWeany]

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.

Re: If it were written today

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you know, we can admit that "savages" describes tribal people with little technological advancement who raped and murdered each other for 10,000 years before white people showed up, then happily raped and murdered them too.

Part of your anti-white washing of history conveniently ignores the genocidal brutality of the native population. White people were more effective, but certainly not any more brutal.

Re: If it were written today

[Anonymous Coward]

the genocidal brutality of the native population.

Different regions had different perspectives on war. Some of the pre-US tribes had a semi-civilized diplomatic system before they engaged in any sort of organized violence, but no method to even identify stray cross-tribe killings. Some tribes held an oddly simple revenge model, where any offense was met by a raid, with no actual concern for how much death or damage was done. There is a region where until a few decades ago, all offenses or suspected offenses were punished by death (it was the second generation of missionaries that was able to contact them alive). Some regions saw any inter-tribal offense as grounds to kill the other tribe entirely (until some pale-skinned boat-riders with a wierd language offered booze and guns in exchange for enslaving other tribes).

Not all tribal cultures were genocidal, but most human cultures have a history of brutality (otherwise they would've been conquered by another culture).

Re: If it were written today

[Zero__Kelvin]

So I guess nobody told you, but "savage" was an accurate description of Native Americans circa the 1700s. I agree many would be upset, but it would be in the "contemporary tradition" of people getting upset at facts that clash with their carefully constructed facade of "alternative facts."

Re:Facebook hates America

[Oswald McWeany]

TLDR: Hey Britain, we're breaking up with you.

Re:Facebook hates America

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

Good thing this doesn't happen anymore.

Re:Facebook hates America

[jnaujok]

I believe the comment made by one historian (Clay Jenkinson) was, "Thomas Jefferson was the only one of the Founding Fathers that could have written the Declaration with that grandiose style. If George Washington would have written the Declaration of Independence, it would have read, 'We Quit!'"