Facebook Shouldn't Censor Offensive Speech | ACLU - "Given Facebook’s nearly unparalleled status as a forum for political speech and debate, it should not take down anything but unlawful speech, like incitement to violence. Otherwise, in attempting to apply more amorphous concepts not already defined in law, Facebook will often get it wrong. Given the enormous amount of speech uploaded every day to Facebook’s platform, attempting to filter out “bad” speech is a nearly impossible task. The use of algorithms and other artificial intelligence to try to deal with the volume is only likely to exacerbate the problem. If Facebook gives itself broader censorship powers, it will inevitably take down important speech and silence already marginalized voices... As odious as certain viewpoints are, Facebook is right to resist calls for further outright censorship. When it comes to gatekeepers of the modern-day public square, we should hope for commitment to free speech principles."
Weird that the ACLU doesn't know that only the government can censor
How activists of color lose battles against Facebook’s moderator army - "Merrill, a psychologist who advises corporations on how to avoid racial bias, wondered whether she was targeted because she is African American. So she asked some white friends to conduct an experiment: They copied what she had written word for word and had others report it as inappropriate content. In most cases, Facebook allowed the content to remain active. None of their profiles were suspended."
From 2017. Given that the suspensions mentioned in the post were for 3 and 7 days, it's clear that it wasn't their first suspensions. So it's not that Facebook was discriminating against minorities ("activists of color") when white people could post the exact same thing - it's that Facebook was discriminating against people who had previously been zucced
Facebook bans canal over 'obscene' name, dubs it 'hate speech' - "It’s a ban Dyke. Facebook sent UK users in a tizzy after prohibiting posts that mention a picturesque canal in Norfolk on account of its seemingly dirty name. The body of water in question is the Cockshoot Dyke... “People found it hilarious, saying it should be called ‘the waterway that shall not be named,'” Steve Burgess, administrator on the Love the Norfolk Broads Facebook page, told the Sun... The social media giant has since banned any mention of the name and classified its algorithms as “hate speech.”... Interestingly, the name isn’t even inappropriate in British vernacular. “Cockshoot” is actually a hunting term that refers to the pursuit of a wading bird called the woodcock. Meanwhile, “dyke” in this context simply means a barrier used to regulate or hold back water from a river, lake or even the ocean. Nonetheless, the business owner claims that anglers were banned for even mentioning fishing sites at the Dyke at Cockshoot Broad, and that he himself was prevented from posting Facebook pics for a full day. Other places that have fallen afoul of the algorithm include Plymouth Hoe, in Devon, and Devil’s Dyke, in West Sussex. No word as to whether posts about the notorious Austrian town of “F – – king” — now named “Fugging” — received the same treatment"
Facebook apologises for flagging Plymouth Hoe as offensive term
Hoe no! Facebook snafu spells trouble for gardening group - "the group, WNY Gardeners, has more than 7,500 members who use it to get gardening tips and advice. It's been especially popular during the pandemic when many homebound people took up gardening for the first time. A hoe by any other name could be a rake, a harrow or a rototill. But Licata was not about to ban the word from the group, or try to delete each instance. When a group member commented “Push pull hoe!" on a post asking for “your most loved & indispensable weeding tool," Facebook sent a notification that said “We reviewed this comment and found it goes against our standards for harassment and bullying."... Licata received a notification that Facebook automatically disabled commenting on a post because of “possible violence, incitement, or hate in multiple comments." The offending comments included “Kill them all. Drown them in soapy water,” and “Japanese beetles are jerks.""
Vienna museums open adult-only OnlyFans account to display nudes - "More than a century after the artists of the Vienna Secession declared “to every age its art; to art its freedom”, the Austrian capital has found a new site for artistic expression free from censorship: the adults-only platform OnlyFans. Vienna’s tourism board has started an account on OnlyFans – the only social network that permits depictions of nudity – in protest against platforms’ ongoing censorship of its art museums and galleries. In July, the Albertina Museum’s new TikTok account was suspended and then blocked for showing works by the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki that showed an obscured female breast, forcing the museum to start a new account. This followed a similar incident in 2019, when Instagram ruled that a painting by Peter Paul Rubens violated the platform’s community standards which prohibit any depictions of nudity – even those that are “artistic or creative in nature”. In 2018, the Natural History Museum’s photograph of the 25,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf figurine was deemed pornographic by Facebook and removed from the platform. The Leopold Museum has likewise struggled to promote its collection of nudes by the expressionist Egon Schiele, with advertising regulators in Germany, the UK and US refusing to show them in a city tourism campaign in 2018. (The tourist board successfully resubmitted the posters with banners obscuring the bare bodies reading: “Sorry – 100 years old but still too daring today.”) A short video featuring the painting Liebespaar by Koloman Moser, made to mark the Leopold Museum’s 20th anniversary this year, was rejected by Facebook and Instagram as “potentially pornographic”... Helena Hartlauer, a Vienna tourist board spokesperson, said the city and its cultural institutions had been finding it “almost impossible” to use nude artworks in promotional materials. Some works in the Albertina’s current exhibition, by the Italian portrait artist Amedeo Modigliani, are too explicit to promote it, she said. “Of course you can work without that, but these artworks are crucial and important to Vienna – when you think of the self-portrait by Schiele from 1910, it’s one of the most iconic artworks. If they cannot be used on a communications tool as strong as social media, it’s unfair and frustrating. That’s why we thought [of OnlyFans]: finally, a way to show these things.”... Hartlauer said the new “Vienna strips on OnlyFans” campaign was not just to encourage tourists; it was also to raise awareness of the censorious standards within which contemporary artists are working. Instagram, along with its parent company, Facebook, has retained its strict no-nudity policy in the face of years of criticism, and even as it has become a more essential platform for artists. In July, creatives protested against social media networks’ uneven promotion of their work with the hashtag #FixTheAlgorithm... Ironically, the Vienna tourist board, having decided to launch a presence on OnlyFans, encountered barriers promoting it. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all rejected links to the platform, requiring the board to liaise with their service teams, in some cases over weeks. Hartlauer said the hurdles to launching the campaign proved its point about the insidious power of social media platforms to influence and suppress artistic expression. “It shows us again that this is the right question to be asking.”"
Fucke no more – Swedish settlement applies for name change - " Homeowners in the area are tired of their posts being censored when they try to sell things online, or write about the village on Facebook, so they have united and sent in a joint application to The National Land Survey of Sweden to change its name to Dalsro ("quiet valley") instead, SVT reports. Unfortunately for residents, this could take some time. A name change must be considered by the Swedish National Heritage Board and the Institute for Language and Folklore before it can be approved... Residents of the Swedish village of Fjuckby tried and failed to change their town's name to Fjukeby back in 2007"
Response to Facebook Ban - "Facebook banned me for quoting Isaac Asimov
'I very clearly am not supporting dangerous individuals or violence against specific groups of people. Rather the opposite. I am quoting Isaac Asimov, a well known Jewish science fiction author and Scientist. In fact, Asimov, and some other science fiction authors with engineering and science backgrounds, worked for the US Government during WW2, and against the Nazis. Asimov is well known for many things. One of those is being an outspoken proponent of individual liberties, including the right to free speech. I used a very well known quote from Asimov, one which targets authoritarian regimes and politically popular speech. My purpose in doing so was to make clear that saying things which are politically popular are always protected, even in the most extreme situations. But saying things that challenge norms and standards are not protected. Ironically, by banning me, Facebook has made clear what both Asimov and I am saying. Popular speech is protected, unpopular speech is not. Even more ironically, I know of many other people that have posted this exact same quote from Isaac Asimov and not received so much as a content warning from Facebook. In other words, I am targeted by someone... Frankly, I have little hope that Facebook will ever understand what constitutes free speech or individual liberty. As you clearly will ban quoting such a giant as Isaac Asimov.'"
On "Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say 'Heil Hitler". Facebook is lying when it claims it applies the same standards to everyone
A Jewish quip got me banned from Facebook on Christmas - "A friend had posted a pic of their family eating Chinese food on Christmas and seemed to imply that they had gone to great lengths to maintain this Hebraic tradition. I chimed in with the following: “Well, we went all the way to Hackensack for dim sum – crazy Jews!” BOOM... you can’t complain to anyone at Facebook or reason with them or explain self-deprecating humor to them. You can click a button that says you disagree with their assessment and hope to hear back from them soon. Good luck with that"
Facebook Suspends Russian Colorist For 'Dangerous' WWII Images - "Russian photo colorist Olga Shirnina has stunning new work ready to post for her more than 45,000 followers on social media but is unwilling to share three new images on Facebook and Instagram because, as she told RFE/RL, “I would be [suspended] again for sure.” Shirnina (above), who works under the name Klimbim, is a professional German-Russian translator and considered one of the best in the world at using Photoshop to transform historic black-and-white images into color. The Moscow-based translator and history enthusiast says she spends hours on her computer researching, then adding vibrance to monochrome historic images “purely for pleasure.” Shirnina has been profiled in leading news and art websites around the world and labels her work free for anyone to use not-for-profit. Photos in her colorized collection are a mixture of daily life, portraits, and historic photojournalism from around the world. None of her captions includes political commentary. In September 2019, Shirnina received her first notification from Instagram that an image she colorized of senior Nazi leaders had “violated community guidelines” and that her account could be deleted if she posted similar content in the future. In the following months, several more of Shirnina’s colorized photographs were removed from both Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. The situation escalated when Shirnina’s Facebook account was suspended after she posted the image below of two Nazi soldiers during a battle in Ukraine. No Nazi insignia is visible in the photo, suggesting the image may have been flagged by a person rather than through automation. Shirnina was again warned she had broken Facebook rules on dangerous organizations. It would prove the first and last time she says an appeal was successful... Shirnina’s Facebook account was suspended for three days -- this time for posting a colorized version of Evgenei Khaldei’s iconic photo of Soviet soldiers raising their flag above the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945. Her appeal against the decision was rejected and she was able to use her account with more than 20,000 followers only after waiting three days, then sending a scan of her driver’s license, which Facebook requested to confirm her identity. Shirnina says she has been “puzzled” by the apparent inconsistency of Facebook’s changing rules and says it remains unclear which images could trigger a permanent ban. “I work with real historical photos and they can't be corrected!” she says. Several images of Soviet leaders responsible for the deaths of millions of people -- as well as photos with Soviet symbols clearly visible -- have been published without problem on her pages."
Meet the Censored: Hitler - "Can history itself violate community standards?... There is no politicking or advocacy observable here... Nonetheless, Instagram pulled Marotta’s post on Hitler’s election, saying it violated “community guidelines.” When he appealed the decision, the rejected him again, saying his content went against their guidelines on “violence or dangerous organizations”... asking computer programs to sort out the subtleties of different types of speech — differences between commentary and advocacy, criticism and incitement, reporting and participation — has proven a disaster. A theme running through nearly all of the “Meet the Censored” articles is this problem of algorithmic censorship systematically throwing out babies with bathwater. Whether it’s YouTube cracking down on videographer Ford Fischer for covering events involving Holocaust deniers or white supremacists, the same platform zapping footage of the January 6th riots shot by Jon Farina of Status Coup, or Matt Orfalea being punished for violating a “criminal organizations policy” for a spoof coffee commercial involving a mass-murderer, Internet carriers have consistently shown they cannot or will not distinguish between, say, being a Nazi and criticizing one, joking about one, even warning about one. The frightening thing about the 100YearsAgoLive incident is that it’s not hard to see this becoming a trend, where history itself is deemed to violate common decency. The whole idea of historical education is to prevent future horrors via graphic warnings from the past. Survivors of the Holocaust have always been adamant that we must “Never Forget,” that places such as Auschwitz must never be buried or hidden away but instead displayed prominently, made into lasting cultural artifacts whose purpose is to be so conspicuous as to prevent the natural human impulse to whitewash our sadly expansive history of evil... '100 years ago yesterday, Adolf Hitler was made Führer of the Nazi Party. We reported on this story with the same caption for both Twitter and Instagram, explaining that Hitler had become Fuhrer and a little background information. There was no hateful imagery or view espoused in reporting on this objective fact. Within 20 minutes, Instagram took down the photo of Hitler, with the note that the post promoted hate speech and extremism. Given that it was literally a photograph of Hitler with the caption that he was made Führer, I appealed the decision. They struck it down once again... I am Jewish, and Holocaust education is vital to my beliefs system. If I cannot provide context on Hitler’s rise to power, then Holocaust education becomes difficult.'"
Facebook apologises for threat to ban 81-year-old for posts about knitted ‘pigs’ - "Facebook has apologised after it threatened to permanently ban an elderly woman from the platform, having mistaken her comments about knitted pigs as “hate speech”. Rita Rich-Mulcahy received two warnings from Facebook after she posted innocent references to the woollen pig dolls she knits on a page dedicated to her creations. The 81-year-old, who is from Shropshire but migrated to Australia in 1965, set a challenge for herself to knit 100 five-inch woolly pigs for charity following the death of her husband, John Mulcahy... The first comment was made in response to a friend who posted “white rabbits, white rabbits” on 1 February. Mrs Rich-Mulcahy responded: “No, white pigs, white pigs!” “Everyone on the knit site and my page knows I am a porcophile,” she explained. “The second time was when I posted a picture and I said ‘hi-viz piggy’.” She said the second comment earned her “two strikes”, and Facebook had threatened to permanently bar her from the site for “hate speech”... Mr Mulcahy died “a year ago”, she said, and she had joined a knitting group on Facebook to deal with her grief. Her target of knitting 100 pigs and naming them with pig puns - “as in Pigcasso, Francis Bacon, Hamlet, Hamplify, and so on” - has seen her knit 79 of what she calls “Wittyknits”. She aims to show the pigs to raise money for a charity that helps disadvantaged children in Australia called The Smith Family."
Facebook accused of ‘discriminatory and racist’ behaviour after removing historical PNG images - "Facebook has been accused of “discriminatory and racist” behaviour after it deleted historical photos from a group that publishes archival photos of men and women from Papua New Guinea. The group, which boasts over 55,000 members, claims photos showing traditional dress or ceremonies were deleted for allegedly containing nudity – but photos showing nudity among white people were not... One of the group’s administrators, Arthur Smedley, told the Guardian he found Facebook’s application of its policy “ridiculous” after a fellow administrator, Peter Tate, was allegedly banned for posting a photo of a group of men “bare-chested with no covering to the upper part of their bodies”. “As far as I’m concerned, it would mean for us in Australia that we’d be banned from posting images of men going to the beach during summer,” Smedley said. “Some users have said they’ve found these bans to be discriminatory and racist, that they take this stand against traditional, cultural activities.”... Peter Kranz, a former executive director of information resources at the University of Papua New Guinea, said the heavy-handed approach was surprising. “I’ve been blocked on three occasions for posting photos that are legitimate from historical documents, and are found in museums, libraries and collections around the world,” he said. “It makes me very sad and disappointed, that we seem to be banning material that is of genuine academic and historical interest. “In fact a lot of the material you could find at the Australian national archives, or the British Museum or the University of California. It is very disappointing that documents in the public domain, and of value historically, are being blocked by Facebook for what seems to be trivial reasons.”... Facebook was accused in April of not doing enough to remove hate speech and racism on its platform. The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network has lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission over what the group alleges is Facebook’s failure to prevent the spread of hate speech."
Content with white people gets removed all the time, so this is just seeing inconsistent and flawed moderation and imputing discriminatory motivation (when the discrimination is the other way). But if that is what it takes to put pressure on Facebook, that might not be a bad thing
Meme - "You know what they call a cigarette in Great Britain?"
"What?"
"You're Temporarily Blocked From Posting. This temporary block will last for 24 hours, and you won’t be able to post on Facebook until it’s finished. Please bear in mind that people who repeatedly post things that aren’t allowed on Facebook may have their accounts permanently disabled."
Meme - Jay Hubbard: "Today, FB censored something I was trying to say inside a private group chat, in real time. As I pressed "enter" this message popped up and made me delete it. Are you fucking kidding me? How any of you are still willingly on this social media platform is beyond me. It's gotten beyond insane. People NEED to exit Facebook. I've already started building a group of friends elsewhere. Hope you all do the same."
Facebook blocks woman's 'men are dumb' comment as 'hate speech' - "A Detroit woman said she was temporarily banished from Facebook for “hate speech” after participating in a time-honored tradition: commenting on a meme labeling the opposite sex as “dumb.”... King found her Facebook house arrest pretty ludicrous as she’s seen “way worse than something silly like that — about nail polish,” attested the exile social media trustee. She later insisted that she was not a man hater."
Feminists are upset they can't trash men
Facebook’s Uneven Enforcement of Hate Speech Rules Allows Vile Posts to Stay Up - "ProPublica has found in an analysis of more than 900 posts submitted to us as part of a crowd-sourced investigation into how the world’s largest social network implements its hate-speech rules. Based on this small fraction of Facebook posts, its content reviewers often make different calls on items with similar content, and don’t always abide by the company’s complex guidelines. Even when they do follow the rules, racist or sexist language may survive scrutiny because it is not sufficiently derogatory or violent to meet Facebook’s definition of hate speech. We asked Facebook to explain its decisions on a sample of 49 items, sent in by people who maintained that content reviewers had erred, mostly by leaving hate speech up, or in a few instances by deleting legitimate expression. In 22 cases, Facebook said its reviewers had made a mistake. In 19, it defended the rulings. In six cases, Facebook said the content did violate its rules but its reviewers had not actually judged it one way or the other because users had not flagged it correctly, or the author had deleted it. In the other two cases, it said it didn’t have enough information to respond... Consider this photo of a black man missing a tooth and wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head. The caption states: ”Yeah, we needs to be spending dat money on food stamps wheres we can gets mo water melen an fried chicken.” ProPublica reader Angie Johnson reported the image to Facebook and was told it didn’t violate their rules. When we asked for clarification, Facebook said the image and text were okay because they didn’t include a specific attack on a protected group. By comparison, a ProPublica reader, who asked not to be named, shared with us a post about race in which she expressed exasperation with racial inequality in America by saying, “White people are the fucking most.” Her comment was taken down by Facebook soon after it was published... some activists for civil rights and women’s rights end up in “Facebook jail,” while pages run by groups listed as hateful by the Southern Poverty Law Center are decked out with verification checkmarks and donation buttons... Of the hundreds of readers who submitted posts to ProPublica, only one said Facebook reversed a decision in response to feedback. Grammy-winning musician Janis Ian was banned from posting on Facebook for several days for violating community standards after she posted a photo of a man with a swastika tattooed on the back of his head — even though the text overlaid on the photo urged people to speak out against a Nazi rally. Facebook also removed the post... Annie Ramsey, a feminist activist, founded a group called “Double Standards” to mobilize members against disturbing speech about women. Members post egregious examples to the private group, such as this image of a woman in a shopping cart, as if she were merchandise... Members of Ramsey’s group have run afoul of Facebook’s rules for what they consider candid discussion of gender issues. Facebook took down a post by one member, Charro Sebring, which said, “Men really are trash.” Facebook defended its decision to remove what it called a “gender-based attack.”... “I give feedback every time in capital letters: YOU’RE BANNING THE WRONG PEOPLE. It makes me want to shove my head into a wall.”"
Clearly it is inconsistent if someone explicitly criticising white people gets censored but not someone posting a cartoon criticising profligate welfare recipients who happen to be of a certain race
Apparently censorship needs to be outsourced to the SPLC, and liberal activists should be free to be as hateful as they want
"Double standards" means that cherry picked examples are not censored. This is related to this woman who kept complaining that she got zucced for criticising men, but only men. I suggested that that might be because she only criticised men
It's telling that feminists are upset that saying "Men really are trash" gets you zucced - the group really does reveal double standards: just not in the way that they think
Most of their examples of alleged double standards are hilarious. They are upset at one post about Islam and time travel, i.e. it being culturally medieval (but recently we keep seeing memes about Florida/the US and time travel, i.e. being backward). They are also upset about numbers of deaths from Islamic terrorism - apparently it's Islamophobic to keep track of that. To their credit, they did have an example of someone saying terfs should go to gulags
3 Day Suspension : How many of you are seeing this on your profile as of yesterday? If so have you seen anything in the news? Also what is your Facebook gender set to and your age? : facebook - "Something you sent involves child nudity or sexual exploitation"
"As of yesterday thousands have apparently gotten this random 3 day ban. Myself, friends, people here and all over. One friend is a mechanic who uses FB solely for Marketplace shopping. Another is to talk to his wife and 2-3 friends. But yet banned. All of the people I know are males 40+, no females are included in this hence my questions."
3 Day Suspension : How many of you are seeing this on your profile as of yesterday? If so have you seen anything in the news? Also what is your Facebook gender set to and your age? : facebook - "My account got a 7 day restriction bc I wrote "well in that situation I would just shoot down your buddy". But it is in a videogame group for War Thunder where the objective is to shoot down the other teams planes. I also got banned last month bc someone asked how you destroy a base and I said "Use Bombs". this shit is ridiculous. So Christmas this year I won't be able to post anything to my family bc facebook banned me over a videogame."
3 Day Suspension : How many of you are seeing this on your profile as of yesterday? If so have you seen anything in the news? Also what is your Facebook gender set to and your age? : facebook - "I was telling a friend of mine to watch the volcano documentary about the “22 tourists who got killed on White Island in NZ” Facebook is trash, time to delete it completely."
3 Day Suspension : How many of you are seeing this on your profile as of yesterday? If so have you seen anything in the news? Also what is your Facebook gender set to and your age? : facebook - "my personal account has been flagged by Facebook for idiotic things such as; • They flagged a picture of troops standing around in DC as "erotic content". • A third-party fact-checker called "Africa Check" flagged a picture of me in a crowd as false information (this was later reversed). • Facebook flagged a video of cats reacting to cucumbers as "Violent or graphic content" and hid the preview."
Google Doesn't Want You to See This Letter From a Christian Pastor About Pride Month - "Dan Phillips, a Christian pastor and sometimes blogger, recently posted a letter he sent to his congregation to help parents explain Pride Month to their children. The letter (read it in its entirety below) was posted on June 5 on the Pyromaniacs blog, which is hosted on the Google-owned Blogger platform. It was a thoughtful letter with sound biblical advice for families trying to navigate the rainbow-saturated month of June. In fact, I forwarded it to my son and daughter-in-law and told them to bookmark it for when those questions come up with our granddaughter, as they inevitably will. Not long after the letter was posted, Google/Blogger stepped in and censored the post... the powers that be at Google deemed it hate speech. Not only that, but the post has been scrubbed from archiving sites like the Wayback Machine and Archive.ph. It has also been disappeared from Google Search. And Blogger apparently even removed it from the backend of the site—a scary development that I’d not heard of before"