Facebook has installed a new feature for the platform to “detect” hate speech – by adding buttons to your posts.
Not to fall too deep in the soup, but when Mark Zuckerberg was quizzed by Congress, the subject of Myanmar and Facebook’s role in being a place where hate speech was able to be broadcast over the internet, Zuckerberg agreed that changes needed to be made.
Well, today, Facebook started to push down an update with buttons that say “Does this post contain hate speech?” These buttons are located at the bottom of each post, prompting all users to let them know whether or not hate speech is being used.
Now, I’m totally all for keeping the internet safe here, but I just KNOW someone’s going to click “Yes” on hate speech if I say “Pineapple goes on Pizza.” Hopefully, they have someone vetting these “Yes’s and No’s” before temporarily disabling someone’s account.
In other news, Zuck is trying to also push in an update for Up Vote / Down Vote buttons, similar to YouTube and Reddit. They’ve currently begun testing it in international markets, such as New Zealand and Australia for now, according to TechCrunch. With this, it prompts users when something is “downvoted” to give additional comments such as “Offensive, Misleading, and Off Topic.”
Sure, that could be great for places that aren’t so easily offended by things, but I know in the case of America, it would cause way more problems than it’s probably worth at this point. There are a trillion reactions that people could have to a comment, and I don’t necessarily think that it can be modified via up vote/down vote bots.
Anyone miss MySpace yet?