Facebook changing ‘race-blind’ hate speech policy
techxplore | 12/03/2020

Facebook on Thursday said it is revising its systems to prioritize blocking slurs against {b}lack people, gays and other groups historically targeted by hateful vitriol, no longer automatically filtering out barbs aimed broadly at whites, men, or Americans.

The change in Facebook’s algorithm is a shift from the social network’s ethnicity and gender-neutral system that removed anti-white comments and comments such as “Men are dumb” or “Americans are stupid.”

“We know that hate speech targeted towards underrepresented groups can be the most harmful, which is why we have focused our technology on finding the hate speech that users and experts tell us is the most serious,” said Facebook spokeswoman Sally Aldous.

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The reform is at an early stage and aims to target speech deemed “the worst of the worst,” including slurs against {b}lack people, Muslims, people of more than one race, the LGBTQ community and Jews, according to a report in the Washington Post.

And ivory . . .

Facebook to Rank Anti-Black Hate Speech Over Anti-White Comments
New York Post | December 4, 2020 | Ebony Bowden

Facebook has updated its hate speech algorithm, reversing years of neutrality to prioritize anti-black comments while making anti-white slurs the lowest priority.

The tech giant’s new system for detecting hate speech, known internally as the WoW Project, will automatically delete hateful language directed at the LGBTQ community, Jews, Muslims and African Americans — which has been dubbed by Facebook engineers as the “worst of the worst,” the Washington Post reported.

The company will now begin scoring hate speech and offensive posts, and remarks about “men,” “whites” and “Americans” will be marked “low sensitivity,” the report said.