“Hate Speech” Difficult to Police
Social media behemoth Facebook, with over two billion users worldwide, has issued a censorship report for the first quarter of 2018. The document states that its recently-deployed artificial intelligence censor-bots flag or eliminate over 85% of images posted containing “graphic violence.”
The same techniques have been successful in addressing 1.9 million in the same period posts promoting “terrorist propaganda,” the company said.
Facebook’s automated censors have much greater difficulty detecting “racist or homophobic hate speech,” because it “racist is often quoted on posts by their targets or activists,” AFP reports.
“It may take a human to understand and accurately interpret nuances like… self-referential comments or sarcasm,” the report said, noting that Facebook aims to “protect and respect both expression and personal safety”.
Facebook took action against 2.5 million pieces of hate speech content during the period, a 56 increase over October-December. But only 38 percent had been detected through Facebook’s efforts — the rest flagged up by users.
The posts that keep the Facebook reviewers the busiest are those showing adult nudity or sexual activity — quite apart from child pornography, which is not covered by the report.
Some 21 million such posts were handled in the period, a similar number to October-December 2017.
That was less than 0.1 percent of viewed content — which includes text, images, videos, links, live videos or comments on posts — Facebook said, adding it had dealt with nearly 96 percent of the cases before being alerted to them.
[…] via Facebook Intensifies Censorship of User Content — Memory Hole Blog […]
The attack on American values never lets up. Speaking your mind and protecting yourself are inalienable rights meaning they can’t be taken away. And yet every day they try. They just tried to pass the Red Flag Law in Colorado which erases the 2nd amendment at the pleasure of Gov’t if you are reported to be suicidal or threaten violence. That’s because the Gov’t wants a monopoly on violence and you to be helpless to stop it. The leadville, Colorado police chief was arrested for selling confiscated guns right out of the evidence room without a red flag law. Imagine what he would have done with one? I can just hear the Chief now “Sir you look depressed, we might need to take your guns”… “But don’t worry, the Judge will let you prove you’re not crazy in about 6 months. Sorry about missing the entire hunting season”
Meanwhile, a German court just ordered facebook to restore a post which they had deleted because they simply didn’t like it–and facebook was also prohibited from banning the person altogether.
Note that Germany has a censorship law, too! It appears that common sense may be rearing its head in Germany:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12224/facebook-censorship-germany