It’s a well-known fact that Facebook has found itself surrounded by a lot of controversies lately. The latest one is regarding the hateful content on the platform. So, the Social Media Giant is adamant on tackling with this issue and tracking down “hate agents” through all possible means. The most effective way for doing is that is hunting for “signals” that would help in identifying a “hate agent”.
According to a policy document seen by Breitbart, even interacting with a “designated hate entity”, or appearing at events or elsewhere with them can possibly get a user marked as a “hate agent”. Additionally, identifying with a “designated hateful ideology” or defending them might also get the user banned.
The list of signals mentioned above isn’t complete however. There are several other factors as well such as having tattoos of hate slogans and symbols. Also, with several trivial and meaningless slangs and gestures becoming “offensive” all of a sudden, it’s better to watch out before using those.
This brings us to “Hate Speech”. According to the policies set by Facebook, a “tier 2” hate speech is when a person uses derogatory remarks like “ugly”, “stupid”, “fraud”. These remarks become hate speech when it is confirmed that they were made on the basis of religion, race or other protected characteristics.
A “tier 3” hate speech includes people deciding to separate themselves from a person on the basis of stupidity, ugliness etc.
5 hate speech remarks in a month or three in a single statement generates a “signal” and Facebook’s hate-hunters are then allowed to dig into the history of users who made hateful remarks, on the platform in the last 2 years, to retrieve more evidence.
If that wasn’t enough, Facebook now maintains a list of “hate agents” as well.
It is assumed that the Social Media Giant rewards its employees to track down and fetch evidence against the users who are behaving as “hate agents” both on and off the platform. Tracking a user’s off-platform activities is not a difficult task for Facebook as it was revealed last year after the enormous data breach that the Social Media Giant has access to users’ photos, including the ones that aren’t uploaded.
In addition to hate “signals”, the company is also focusing on borderline content (doesn’t violate the community guidelines but is offensive enough to warrant attention). Thus, with all these factors, it will be interesting to see how Facebook deals with the hateful content found on the platform, moving forward.
Read next: Facebook is extending its ‘keywords alert’ feature to more Groups and Admins
According to a policy document seen by Breitbart, even interacting with a “designated hate entity”, or appearing at events or elsewhere with them can possibly get a user marked as a “hate agent”. Additionally, identifying with a “designated hateful ideology” or defending them might also get the user banned.
The list of signals mentioned above isn’t complete however. There are several other factors as well such as having tattoos of hate slogans and symbols. Also, with several trivial and meaningless slangs and gestures becoming “offensive” all of a sudden, it’s better to watch out before using those.
This brings us to “Hate Speech”. According to the policies set by Facebook, a “tier 2” hate speech is when a person uses derogatory remarks like “ugly”, “stupid”, “fraud”. These remarks become hate speech when it is confirmed that they were made on the basis of religion, race or other protected characteristics.
A “tier 3” hate speech includes people deciding to separate themselves from a person on the basis of stupidity, ugliness etc.
5 hate speech remarks in a month or three in a single statement generates a “signal” and Facebook’s hate-hunters are then allowed to dig into the history of users who made hateful remarks, on the platform in the last 2 years, to retrieve more evidence.
If that wasn’t enough, Facebook now maintains a list of “hate agents” as well.
It is assumed that the Social Media Giant rewards its employees to track down and fetch evidence against the users who are behaving as “hate agents” both on and off the platform. Tracking a user’s off-platform activities is not a difficult task for Facebook as it was revealed last year after the enormous data breach that the Social Media Giant has access to users’ photos, including the ones that aren’t uploaded.
In addition to hate “signals”, the company is also focusing on borderline content (doesn’t violate the community guidelines but is offensive enough to warrant attention). Thus, with all these factors, it will be interesting to see how Facebook deals with the hateful content found on the platform, moving forward.
Read next: Facebook is extending its ‘keywords alert’ feature to more Groups and Admins
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