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At first glance, the Vindicator's Facebook promotion did not seem designed to make waves.
The small newspaper, based in Liberty, a Texan city of 75,000 Houston residents, planned to publish the Declaration of Independence on Facebook in 12 daily installments until July 4 – 242 years after the date of publication. adoption of the document at the Second Continental Congress in 1776.
But on the 10th day, the last Vindicator's down payment was withdrawn by Facebook. The company told the newspaper that the particular passage, which included the phrase "ruthless Indians savages", went against its "standards on hate speech", the newspaper wrote.
The story on how Facebook had censored one of the founding texts of the United States on the grounds that it was a hate speech traveled around the world whole. And that's another glaring example of how the mechanisms used by technology companies to regulate user content – many of which involve algorithms and other automated processes – can lead to embarrassing mistakes. Facebook uses a mixture of human work and technological efforts to moderate its content.
Facebook has since apologized to the Vindicator and restored the newspaper post.
"The post was mistakenly removed and restored as soon as we examined it," the company said in a statement distributed by spokeswoman Sarah Pollack. "We process millions of reports every week, and sometimes we are wrong."
[Some Trump supporters thought NPR tweeted ‘propaganda.’ It was the Declaration of Independence.]
Vindicator editor Casey Stinnett wrote that the newspaper believed the message had been marked by an automated torture process. The passage that Facebook has blocked, paragraphs 27-31, bluntly speaks of King George III in England as part of a dozens of complaints about the King who follow the repeated opening lines of the text.
"He has excited domestic insurrections among us and he has been striving to bring the inhabitants of our borders, the ruthless Indian Indians, whose known rule of war, is an indistinct destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions, "he reads.
Hate speech is not generally allowed Facebook, although the company notes that the context is important for its evaluations. Pollack said the sentence could violate Facebook's hate speech policies, but his removal was a mistake due to a misunderstanding that the quote came from the Declaration of Independence
"Unfortunately, Jefferson, like most British settlers of his day, "Vindicator noted," there are many things in this passage that could be considered detestable. "
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Stinnett said the episode was a reminder that the newspaper" is "Some Vindicator stories posted on thevindicator.com attract thousands of page views, but usually only after links to them are shared on Facebook," wrote Stinnett
. propaganda ", after having tweeted the text of the Declaration of Independence in short parts.
Facebook was placed under the microscope for having removed some content st, including the famous picture of the Vietnam War depicting a naked child fleeing after a napalm attack. As Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tracy Jan of the Post wrote, "the moderators suppressed the messages of activists and journalists in Burma and disputed areas such as the Palestinian territories and Kashmir and told pro-Trump Diamond activists. and Silk that they were dangerous to the community. "
Stinnett wrote that he saw some irony in the episode.
"It's frustrating, but your publisher is a historian, and to appreciate the study of history, a person must like irony," writes Stinnett. "It's a very great irony that Thomas Jefferson's words are now censored in America."
UPDATE: Earlier in the evening, July 3, Facebook's good people restored the subject of the article … 19659019] Posted by The Vindicator on Tuesday July 3, 2018
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