ProPublica.com

BLM activist Didi Delgado was recently banned by Facebook for a post that seemingly fell within its community guidelines. Last year, BLM activist Shaun King was banned for reposting a continued racist email attack against him.

Far too many Black people have had the experience of flagging and reposting racist content on Facebook only to have their accounts banned as a violation of its community standards while the original post (again, the content they were banned for posting) remains for not violating the same community standards.

Here’s what ProPublica recently reported on Facebook’s internal process:

“One document trains content reviewers on how to apply the company’s global hate speech algorithm. The slide identifies three groups: female drivers, black children and white men. It asks: Which group is protected from hate speech? The correct answer: white men.

The reason is that Facebook deletes curses, slurs, calls for violence and several other types of attacks only when they are directed at “protected categories”—based on race, sex, gender identity, religious affiliation, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation and serious disability/disease. It gives users broader latitude when they write about “subsets” of protected categories. White men are considered a group because both traits are protected, while female drivers and black children, like radicalized Muslims, are subsets, because one of their characteristics is not protected [….]”

Have you ever been banned by Facebook? What questions do you have that have not been answered? More importantly, what should be done?

Update: If you are ever banned/unpublished from Facebook for a post that you believe is within their community standards, you have the option to appeal this action by clicking through the link in your ban/unpublish notice. If you DO NOT have an appeal option, please send your concern with a screen shot of ban notice and post to gososoadae[@]gmail.com.