Facebook revises its ‘race-blind’ hate speech policy

NEW YORK: Facebook has decided to reconsider its hate speech algorithms to focus on blocking smears against Muslims, Blacks and all others that have previously encountered prejudice and discrimination, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The transformation is set to modify the social network’s “so-called race-blind” system that has eradicated anti-white statements and removed inoffensive comments by individuals of colour, the Post said.

The amendment is at an initial phase and intends to focus on speech deemed “the worst of the worst”, involving insults against Muslims, Blacks, individuals of more than one race, the LGBTQ community and Jews, according to core documents acquired by the newspaper.

The new technique means slurs opposed to white people or men will be characterized as “low-sensitivity” and not spontaneously deleted, the article said.

The shift comes as Facebook faces stress from civil rights groups who have long objected the social network does too little to regulate hate discourse.

Previously this year, more than 1,000 advertisers joined a boycott of Facebook to complain its control of hate speech and propaganda.

At the same time, the firm and its competitor Twitter have also been taken to charge on Capitol Hill by Republicans who say the policies are biased against conservatives.

On Wednesday, Twitter told it was enlarging its classification of disgusting content to prohibit language which “dehumanizes” people on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin.

Twitter said it would eradicate insulting tweets when they are reported, and suggested examples such as portraying a specific racial group as “filth” or “leeches”.

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