FACEBOOK (AKA NSA) MAKES WRONG CENSORSHIP CALL ALMOST 1/2 THE TIME

Facebook admitted that its censors made the wrong call on nearly half of a set of 49 situations addressed in a new study.

ProPublica reported that it reviewed the company’s practices regarding images depicting violence or statements that are offensive, and in roughly half the cases even the company admitted it should have done better.

For example, it declined to take down a post with an image reflecting graphic violence – the body of a man on top of ground that was soaked in blood, with a message stating, “the only good Muslim is a ——- dead one.”

But taken down was the single line “Death to the Muslims” which did not have an image at all.

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“We asked Facebook to explain its decisions on a sample of 49 items, sent in by people who maintained that content reviewers had erred, mostly by leaving hate speech up, or in a few instances by deleting legitimate expression,” Propublica’s report said.

'How to pick up Jewish chicks': Vile antisemitic picture shows human remains on a shovel - but Facebook refused to remove it Source: theage

How_To Facebook has been accused of "enabling vicious Jewish hatred" after telling users an image depicting human remains on a shovel below the tag line "How to pick up Jewish chicks" did not breach its standards. Just days after back flipping on its decision to censor an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing, the social media giant is again under fire over its handling of posts reported as offensive. In reply to complaints about the shovel image - which was widely shared, "liked" 21,000 times, and received more than 37,000 comments - Facebook said: "We reviewed the post you reported for displaying hate speech and found it doesn't violate our community standards." Under its community standards policy, Facebook says it "removes hate speech" that attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin and religious affiliation. "We allow humour, satire or social commentary related to these topics, and we believe that when people use their authentic identity, they are more responsible when they share this kind of commentary," the policy says. The image was posted to a page attributed to a Queensland man late last month and shared 2280 times. It has now been removed but tens of thousands of comments, many of which are anti-Semitic, were still visible in the thread as late as Thursday. A Facebook spokesman said the image was removed for breaching community standards and that the company was still investigating. But 24 hours after being asked, the spokesman could still not say when the photo was taken down. Facebook could also not explain why only the photo was initially removed and not the entire thread - which is standard when a post is pulled.

My observation: FR has a real good set of rules for setting standards. That's why decent discussion is possible.

Unless there are rules against insults spewed directly at people, it's impossible for it to stay civil. I'd think it would be so easy for FB to say "no direct personal insults" instead of trying to figure out what's okay by a more vague rule. I'd also think they make enough money to run a legitimate news service with a full spectrum of objective news stories and no advertisements presenting themselves as news.

I don't hate FB. The site was very good to us when we needed a place to communicate when this site was down for so long some of us were going a bit crazy.

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