Facebook
Hate Speech Rules Revised After My Complaint About a Page

Yesterday, 08/11, I went to view what Facebook considers hate speech. The following is what I found: "Facebook does not permit hate speech. While we encourage you to challenge ideas, institutions, events, and practices, it is a serious violation to attack a person based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, DISABILITY or MEDICAL condition." I took the liberty of capitalizing the words DISABILITY and MEDICAL. Otherwise it is exactly word for word their description of what they would not allow. I simply copied and pasted, and only capitalized those two words.

After I filed a complaint against a page whose name replaces one slur for disabled people with another, I went back today, 08/12, to the same help page and saw that they had revised their rules: "What does Facebook consider to be hate speech? Content that attacks people based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease is not allowed. We do, however, allow clear attempts at humor or satire that might otherwise be considered a possible threat or attack. This includes content that many people may find to be in bad taste (e.g., jokes, stand-up comedy, popular song lyrics, etc.)."

The word "disease" replaced the word "medical," and the statement about humor and satire was added. Clearly Facebook saw fit to change its tolerance in order to accommodate the page that was the subject of my complaint.

Company: Facebook
Country: USA

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