Facebook Apologizes For Flagging Declaration Of Independence As "Hate Speech"

The leftist social media giant Facebook has apologized publicly after a case of the platform censoring patriotic speech went viral. This time, the only offense was the Declaration of Independence which was posted by a newspaper in Texas but then taken down after it was flagged by Facebook as being hate speech. Facebook has now restored the post and apologized for the mistake.

The posts were made earlier this week by a small community newspaper in Liberty County, Texas called The Vindicator and featured excerpts from the Declaration of Independence in line with the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. The newspaper was able to post the majority of the Declaration of Independence without running into any problems but one post, in particular, was flagged for containing the phrase "Indian Savages".

When taken out of context, a case could be made that it violates Facebook's community standards but here is the entire sentence:

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions."

Related coverage: <a href="https://thegoldwater.com/news/30366-Fourth-of-July-Facebook-Rejects-I-Stand-for-The-Flag-Country-Song-Promotion-Video#30404">Fourth of July - Facebook Rejects “I Stand for The Flag” Country Song Promotion (Video)</a>

Facebook said its automated systems could have detected the term "Indian Savages" and triggered the platforms measures to take it down. It wasn't until The Vindicator's editors published a story about the censorship on July 3 and contacted Facebook that the company apologized and restored the post.

A Facebook spokesperson said, "The post was removed by mistake and restored as soon as we looked into it. We process millions of reports each week, and sometimes we get things wrong." The social media giant says it plans to hire thousands more human reviewers to help remove hate speech without running into problems such as the one The Vindicator ran into. I guess you could say at the end of the day they were vindicated.

<i>On Twitter:</i>

<a href="https://twitter.com/MAGASyndicate">@MAGASyndicate</a>

Tips? Info? Send me a message!

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-declaration-of-independence-hate-speech-2018-7