Facebook Apologizes After Flagging Portions of Declaration of Independence as 'Hate Speech'
A Texas newspaper was just trying to put up portions of the Declaration of Independence on their Facebook page, but the social media platform then took down their posts. Apparently, the historic document is an example of "hate speech," at least according to their moderators.
The media outlet involved, The Liberty County Vindicator, now wonders if it was the automated filters of Facebook that flagged and took down their content. After all, no human reviewer looking through the post would fail to recognize one of the most important writings from the Founding Founders, and right in the middle of the Independence Day celebrations, too.
Facebook has asked the paper to remove certain passages of their post, which just happened to be real portions of the Declaration of Independence. One part, in particular, stood out for its description of Native Americans.
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"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," the portion read, exactly as written by Thomas Jefferson from long ago.
Unfortunately for The Vindicator, there was no appeal mechanism available to protest over this arbitrary removal of a historical passage, even as the social media platform promised one last April.
It all worked out in the end, though, as Facebook reached out to the newspaper a day after it posted the news about the platform's inadvertent censorship of the Founding Fathers' writings.
"It looks like we made a mistake and removed something you posted on Facebook that didn't go against our Community Standards. We want to apologize and let you know that we've restored your content and removed any blocks on your account related to this incorrect action," a Facebook representative said.
