Facebook employees pushed company to exclude criticism of whites and men from hate speech rules: REPORT

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Facebook employees have urged executives to exclude criticism directed at whites and men from the company’s hate speech policies, according to internal documents reported by the Washington Post.

Facebook researchers attempted to change the company’s content moderation algorithms that automatically suppress hate speech because they believed the algorithms insufficiently protect minority users, The Washington Post reported, citing notes from service and internal research. The effort came in the wake of an April 2020 document that showed that about 90% of hate speech algorithms detect and remove content aimed at white people and men.

The researchers argued that these numbers indicated a bias in Facebook’s automatic deletion algorithms, as content considered to be the most “harmful” or “worst of the worst” was more often aimed at minority groups, the Post reported.

Employees then urged Facebook executives, including vice president of global public policy, Joel Kaplan, to ditch Facebook’s “race-blind” hate speech algorithms that did not discriminate on the basis of race. which the hate speech was directed, according to the Post. . Instead, researchers pushed for algorithms that automatically suppress hate speech directed only against blacks, Jews, LGBTQ people, Muslims, and people of multiple races.

Kaplan would not have wanted to accept the researchers’ proposal because he did not believe that Facebook should favor certain races over others, and he also reportedly worried that the Conservatives would see the changes as politically motivated. However, Kaplan eventually bowed to internal pressure and approved changes, first reported by The Post in December 2020, that stopped automatically suppressing hate speech directed against whites, Americans and men.

Facebook did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

“We did not implement all parts because that would actually have meant less automated deletions of hate speech such as statements of inferiority towards women or expressions of contempt for multiracial people. Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told The Post.

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