Monday, September 10, 2012

Facebook Fails Review


 
The Online Hate Prevention Institute (OHPI) recently reported a number of antisemitic images to Facebook using the regular reporting facility available to all users. Every one of our reports was swiftly reviewed and swiftly rejected.
Facebook is making a serious effort to respond faster to complaints, but this is meaningless if the response is to invariably reject the complaints. There is also no appeal and we have no details of any internal review process – if there is one, Facebook is welcome to share details to reassure us.


There is no way of knowing what is going on at Facebook, but three possibilities suggest themselves: (1) Facebook is giving control of the review process to a group of died in the wool racists, (2) Facebook review staff are well intentioned but seriously ignorant about hate speech, (3) Facebook as policy is doing everything it can in order to normalise the presence of hate speech on its platform. Either the recruitment process is serious flawed, or the training provided to staff is seriously inadequate, or something is rotten at the core of Facebook.
OHPI believes that these examples are exceedingly clear demonstrations of racism. We call on Facebook to:
1. Remove the offensive images
2. Close the offensive pages they are posting them
3. Permanently close the accounts of the users abusing Facebook to spread such hate
4. Review which staff assessed these examples and audit their decision making
5. Take active measures to improve staff training to avoid similar poor decisions in the future
6. To institute an appeal process as part of the online reporting system
7. To institute systematic random checks of rejected complaints
The following images document items that were reported and rejected by Facebook. The concern here is not simply that this content was on the Facebook platform, but that Facebook staff were not able to identify this as hate even after it had been reported to them.
Item 1: Mocking Holocaust Victims
Item 2: Promoting Blood Libel
Item 3: Denying Jews Human Rights
Item 4: Holocaust Denial
Original link:  http://ohpi.org.au/?p=286

Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors(CJHS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit tax exempt organization committed to the promotion of Western values against the dual threats of complacency and the spread of Islam. We believe that the land of Israel - safe and secure and prospering as a Jewish State - is a prerequisite to long-term global peace. CJHS insists that the last Holocaust imposes upon all people of good will a moral and political imperative to prevent the next one.

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