This morning, Facebook users noticed something unusual when scrolling through posts in their feed. A message would pop up and ask them if the post they were viewing was hate speech. It applied to all posts, even if there was nothing remotely close to hate speech in them.
This is weird.
Facebook is asking me about whether *my own post* on Facebook contains hate speech.
And also, the post is just a NYT story about restaurant trends in Austin, to which I've added no commentary. pic.twitter.com/ZIrUW4IW4q
— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) May 1, 2018
Facebook says it was just a test, but an announcement is coming tomorrow about new security features for the site. Any bets that this will be one of them?
Some people saw 'does this post contain hate speech' today on some posts. This was a test – and a bug that we reverted within 20 mins. It was shown for a short time on posts regardless of their content (like this one). pic.twitter.com/iuNKSVTOqQ
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) May 1, 2018
This doesn’t seem like a very good idea because we all know that people will report things that are most definitely not hate speech simply because they don’t agree with with what the person is posting.
Facebook is now putting prompts under every post asking if it "contains hate speech." Well, that's it for conservative content on Facebook, which is their intent. If it's that easy to report a post for "hate speech," there will be no more conservative posts soon enough.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) May 1, 2018
Facebook is now asking people if posts on their feed "contain hate speech." Just imagine how abused this is going to be in a world that believes disagreement is hate?
— Kimberly Ross (@SouthernKeeks) May 1, 2018
LOL. Stupid facebook just made me click a button asking if my post about a coffee spot rebranding is "hate speech". That'll stop the Nazis.
— Dara Grumdahl (@DearDara) May 1, 2018
Facebook is censoring my account. Asking if my post contains "Hate Speech"
Give me a break. Opposing Radical Islam is NOT Hate Speech. pic.twitter.com/MNUBIWtXML
— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) May 1, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg is pledging to put people first but I don’t know if this is the way to do it.