Twitter said on Friday it has permanently banned white supremacist David Duke from its platform for violating the platform’s rules on hate speech. From a report: Duke’s account “has been permanently suspended for Twitter Rules on hateful conduct,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement. Twitter’s policy, revised in March, prohibits posts that promote violence or threats of violence against people…
Tag: hate speech
Trump and Biden Attack Social Media – By Running Ads on Social Media
In 100 days the U.S. will vote on whether Donald Trump, Joe Biden or somebody else should be America’s president. But both candidates are also running political ads attacking social media — on social media. “They’re shooting the messenger while giving it lots of money,” reports the Associated Press: Biden has focused on Facebook, with a #MoveFastFixIt campaign that admonishes Facebook…
Facebook Ignored Racial Bias Research, Employees Say
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: In mid-2019, researchers at Facebook began studying a new set of rules proposed for the automated system that Instagram uses to remove accounts for bullying and other infractions. What they found was alarming. Users on the Facebook-owned Instagram in the United States whose activity on the app suggested they were Black were…
Disney Reportedly Joins Facebook Boycott, Slashes Ad Spending
An anonymous reader quotes the Verge: Disney has significantly reduced its spending on Facebook and Instagram ads amid concerns about the social media platform’s enforcement of its content policies, The Wall Street Journal reported. It joins a list of large companies that have cut back on Facebook ads as part of an effort to compel Facebook to change how it handles…
New Free Speech Site Gets in a Tangle Over … Free Speech
The social network bills itself as a ‘no censorship’ bastion — but it’s already had to remind users what is and isn’t allowed. From a report: In recent weeks, Donald Trump has started having his tweets factchecked and published with disclaimers when they contain misleading information. Katie Hopkins, the woman who once compared migrants to cockroaches and called for a “final…
Microsoft Pauses Spending on Facebook, Instagram
Microsoft suspended its advertising on Facebook and Instagram in the U.S. in May and recently expanded that to a global pause, according to an internal chat transcript seen by Axios. From a report: Unlike the many advertisers who recently joined a Facebook boycott,, Microsoft is concerned about where its ads are shown, not Facebook’s policies. But the move still means yet…
Reddit Finally Bans Hate Speech, Removes 2,000 Racist and Violent Forums
Reddit first launched as an online discussion site in June 2005. Now, 15 years later, it has finally taken action to officially ban hate speech and groups that promote it. From a report: A revised Reddit content policy, announced Monday, explicitly states that groups or users that “incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerabilityâ are prohibited. âoeEveryone…
Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, Starbucks: More Major Advertisers Are Now Boycotting Facebook
Some of America’s biggest brands — Coca-Cola, The Hershey Company and the Levi Strauss & Co. — “are among the latest in pledging to halt advertising on Facebook as part of a growing boycott,” reports USA Today: Despite Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlining several steps the social network will take to combat hate speech ahead of the 2020 presidential election Friday,…
As Advertisers Revolt, Facebook Commits To Flagging ‘Newsworthy’ Political Speech That Violates Policy
As advertisers pull away from Facebook to protest the social networking giant’s hands-off approach to misinformation and hate speech, the company is instituting a number of stronger policies to woo them back. From a report: In a livestreamed segment of the company’s weekly all-hands meeting, CEO Mark Zuckerberg recapped some of the steps Facebook is already taking, and announced new measures…
Military Stands Firm In Defense Of Western Myanmar’s Internet Blackout
Spokesperson of Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s official military, said the leaking of sensitive information about military operations and positions was one of the primary reasons for an internet ban in parts of Arakan State that entered its second year over the weekend. From a report: The secretary of the Tatmadaw True News Information Team, Brigadier-General Zaw Min Tun, was speaking at a news…