in attempt to police hate speech, Facebook to end policy shielding politicians from content moderation rules

[basquebromance]

obey the guidelines, hedonists!

Facebook to end policy shielding politicians from content moderation rules: reports

Facebook is slated to announced that the social media platform will end a policy that largely shielded politicians from repercussions when they violated the site’s hate speech rules, a person…

thehill.com

 

[Rambunctious]

 

[Rambunctious]

 

[basquebromance]

if facebook faced the prospect of lawsuits for facilitating hate speech, it would have to devote enormous resources to prevent hate speech, which would change the game. if they had duty of care, corporate behavior would be very different, my friends

if you had civil laws which allowed you to sue the perpetrator, that would be a gamechanger, folks

 

[basquebromance]

huge swathes of people, including a majority of Americans, use social media as their primary news source...

UK: 41%
Brazil: 66%
Australia: 46%
US: 51%

 

[basquebromance]

Mother Jones reports:

Facebook says it's ending special treatment for politicians. But don't expect real change.⁠
⁠
Facebook has announced that it would stop giving special treatment to politicians. The policy change was greeted as big news.⁠
⁠
The Verge, which broke the story last Thursday, explained that Facebook will “end its controversial policy that mostly shields politicians from the content moderation rules that apply to other users.” Later that evening, the Washington Post called the changes a “major reversal.”⁠
⁠
Upon closer inspection, however, there’s no assurance that the shift will have much of an impact on what politicians can post or how they are treated. Facebook allowed politicians to lie, bully, or otherwise break its code of conduct in the past, and nothing in the new announcement suggests it will stop them from doing so in the future.⁠
⁠
“They have this very peculiar practice of making very large policy announcements that amount to very little,” says Tim Karr, a senior director at Free Press, a digital rights group that has been critical of Facebook’s content moderation practices. The policy change “basically gives them the ability to go back to their usual practices, which is to give special accommodations to the speech of politicians, even when it clearly violates their Community Standards.”⁠
⁠
The announcement came in response to feedback from the Facebook Oversight Board, a quasi-independent body funded by Facebook that was set up last year to make specific content moderation decisions for the company.⁠
⁠
The board took on its most prominent case earlier this year, involving Donald Trump.⁠
⁠
In the wake of the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Facebook suspended Trump from posting on Facebook and Instagram indefinitely, then asked its new Oversight Board if this was the right call.⁠