Tech

REPORT: Facebook To End Race-Blind Hate Speech Moderation

Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images

Font Size:

Facebook is ending race-blind hate speech moderation and will begin policing hate speech directed at black Americans, Muslims, multi-racial Americans, Jewish people and LGBTQ people more aggressively than hate speech directed at white Americans, according to the Washington Post.

The “WoW Project” is aimed at automatically detecting hate speech that is “the worst of the worst,” internal documents about the project that were obtained by the Washington Post said. The project will re-engineer Facebook’s automated moderation system to try and get better at detecting hateful language aimed at minority groups. (RELATED: Facebook Has Flagged Every Single Trump Post Since Election Day)

Facebook’s moderation system will now prioritize removing certain statements over others by assigning them a numerical score based on how harmful they are perceived to be, the Washington Post reported. For example, the statement “gay people are disgusting” would be a higher priority for removal than “men are pigs,” according to the Post.

Comments about “whites,” “men,” and “Americans” are now considered “low-sensitivity” by Facebook’s technology, meaning they are less likely to be removed automatically. Comments against these groups are still considered hate speech and can be reported to Facebook, but deprioritizing hateful language against certain groups has resulted in about 10,000 fewer posts being removed per day, the documents obtained by the Post showed.

In the past, Facebook has removed terms directed at white people at a greater frequency than other types of hate speech. During the nationwide protests against the police killing of George Floyd, the top three terms Facebook automatically removed were “white trash,” a gay slur, and “cracker.” Meanwhile, slurs against black people, Jewish people, and transgender people were taken down less frequently, internal documents first reported by NBC News showed.

Facebook’s employees expressed disdain for the company’s policies over the summer. Employees were angry that Facebook left up comments made by President Donald Trump that some considered to be racially divisive while the George Floyd protests were going on. Black employees expressed their frustrations during a meeting with senior executives, and more than a dozen employees quit in protest of Facebook’s hate speech policies, the Post reported. (RELATED: Facebook Removes ‘Stop The Steal’ Group Over ‘Worrying Calls For Violence’)

A boycott in July by Facebook’s advertisers over civil rights issues increased the pressure on Facebook to change their policies, according to the Washington Post. A civil rights report by independent auditors also slammed the company for their hate speech policies, which they called a “tremendous setback” in protecting marginalized groups. An African American manager filed a civil rights complaint in July about alleged racial bias in recruiting and hiring.

Facebook responded that it is investigating the claims of racism and said that it takes the allegations seriously. They have also pledged to diversify their hiring practices and leadership teams, ban certain content such as white nationalism and Holocaust denial and increase transparency about their hate speech detection technology.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel