Threats Against Politicians Tripled After Meta Changed Its Speech Rules (wired.com)
- Reference: 0183737900
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/10/1748245/threats-against-politicians-tripled-after-meta-changed-its-speech-rules
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/threats-against-politicians-skyrocketed-after-meta-changed-its-speech-rules/
> Last year, Meta radically [1]overhauled the rules around what content it would allow on its platforms. The company [2]claimed that its own efforts policing speech had gone too far and that it would relax the rules around what speech was allowed. "We have been over-enforcing our rules, limiting legitimate political debate and censoring too much trivial content and subjecting too many people to frustrating enforcement actions," Joel Kaplan, Meta's chief global affairs officer, wrote in a blog post at the time. Over a year later, [3]new research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) shows the immediate impact of these changes.
>
> The researchers analyzed about 8 million Facebook comments and found that abusive and racist comments targeting both Republican and Democrat lawmakers [4]tripled in the six months after the new rules were put in place . Some categories of abusive comments documented by the researchers saw even sharper rises, with violent threats and hate speech quadrupling during the same period. The report cites specific examples of gendered and racist abuse directed at lawmakers like US representatives Jasmine Crockette of Texas and Byron Daniels of Florida. These comments were not taken down by Meta.
>
> The CCDH researchers also found that threats against President Trump more than doubled in the six months after Meta overhauled its rules. Many of the comments, which included direct threats to his life, could have been classified as felony offenses, the researchers say. [...] Comments that violated Meta's policies around violent threats quadrupled, from 1,800 in the six months before the changes to 7,600 in the six months after. Hate speech comments also quadrupled, from 6,900 to 30,000. Comments that broke Meta's rules on bullying and harassment doubled, from 15,700 to 39,900.
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/07/189242/meta-ends-fact-checking-on-facebook-instagram-in-free-speech-pitch
[2] https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/
[3] https://counterhate.com/research/safety-off/
[4] https://www.wired.com/story/threats-against-politicians-skyrocketed-after-meta-changed-its-speech-rules/
"Speech Rules" (Score:2)
What is this? The Soviet Union?
Re: (Score:3)
> What is this? The Soviet Union?
We'll have to wait to see if Kristen Welker "accidentally" falls out a window after asking Trump simple questions, like where's the evidence of election fraud in 2020 or the CA primary, and who's the leader of Iran, that he clearly couldn't answer, and asking about his repeated promises of no new wars, that he denied saying, before (almost literally) waddling off in a huff.
Google: [1]Trump interview Kristen Welker [google.com]
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Trump+interview+Kristen+Welker
Did they really increase? (Score:2)
What is hate speech? Hate speech is not well-defined, and as governments keep demonstrating is a very flexible, and random standard. In Canada, suggesting that Islam has a radicalization and extremist problem, is seen as Islamophobia, and therefore, hate speech, but is the statement hateful? No, it's a factual statement. If I deny that mass graves exist at former residential school locations, is that hate speech? No, there has been no evidence provided that show the radar found bone or skeletons. If I
Re: (Score:2)
> What is hate speech?
In the USA, from google:
"Rather than using "hate speech" as a legal category, U.S. courts evaluate specific actions using established First Amendment exceptions. Speech can only be restricted or penalized if it falls into one of these narrow, well-defined categories:
True Threats: Statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group.
Incitement to Violence: Speech directed at inciting or producing "immin
Re: (Score:2)
I mean pretty clearly things got worse just on the quadrupling physical threat front, which a reasonable person should find objectionable. So even if we split hairs on an exact boundary of hate speech, clearly there are some problems. And apparently you aren't opposed to just pointing out problems...
Re: (Score:2)
Fine, but don't say hate speech increased, just point out questionable content increased, which is a fair statement. Hate speech isn't the issue, since you can't define an objective standard for it, that's what I'm calling out.
Re: (Score:2)
Can I find it ironic that your original complaint was basically about needing to being politically correct, but that we need to put "hate speech" on the euphemism rollercoaster of political correctness?
I mean come on, even if we exclude any content on the edges. Do you really think that there haven't been more truly hateful things said on that platform with relaxed rules?
Re: (Score:2)
I'll gladly concede to questionable content, but throwing around a term, like hate speech, isn't helpful. In Canada, they tried to amend Bill C-9 so denying the mass graves at residential school, would be an offence. Many people consider the act of questioning the lack of evidence, as hate speech. An NDP leader openly called questioning of Islam an action of Islamophobia, and tried to label that as hate speech, which it isn't.
The problem with labelling everything as hate speech, is that people will look
Re: (Score:2)
that particular amendment was voted down, bozo - the system works, no hand wringing required
doesn't mean hate speech doesn't exist
Re: (Score:2)
I never said it doesn't exist, I said you can't give an objective definition for it, making the term almost useless.
Re: (Score:2)
> What is hate speech?
You did notice that the article we're discussing talked about actual threats , right?
Re: (Score:2)
> Some categories of abusive comments documented by the researchers saw even sharper rises, with violent threats and hate speech quadrupling during the same period. The report cites specific examples of gendered and racist abuse directed at lawmakers like US representatives Jasmine Crockette of Texas and Byron Daniels of Florida. These comments were not taken down by Meta.
If you can't define hate speech, should we trust you've defined racist abuse correctly? What they probably meant was xenophobic comments were made. I don't take issue with the concept of a violent threat being made, those constantly happen, but they're rarely racist, or, true hate speech, so at best some threats got thrown around, that weren't serious or actionable. If they want to call out question content, that's fine, but you have to be more accurate.
Caring Meter (Score:2)
I can imagine that the Center for Countering Digital Hate has a big meter on the wall, similar to the Caring Meter from the Care Bears Movie. It's part of their quarterly KPIs to show if they're doing a good job or not.
What happens when the Caring Meter drops to zero?
Re: (Score:1)
You induce someone to commit a online flame war crime with a payment from the Center for Countering Digital Hate to the bot farm that amplifies it. They learned it from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And yet... (Score:2, Insightful)
For all of the threats to public servants, no one has actually been killed, right? People like to flap their gums; or flick their fingers, depending on the metaphor and medium.
When we were kids, and didn't analyze the impact, or nuance of our words, we'd say things like, "I'm gonna kill you!" No one took it seriously. I had little brothers; I might've said that to them about 5 times a day. Remarkably, they're all still alive. I don't take threats seriously unless there's a credible reason to.
Re: (Score:3)
> For all of the threats to public servants, no one has actually been killed, right?
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but yes people have died or had assassination attempts made on them. To think that the political discourse doesn't have real world effects is naive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_shootings_of_Minnesota_legislators
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Pelosi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Security_incidents_involving_Donald_Trump
Re: (Score:2)
Trump had two assassination attempts (July 13, 2024 – Butler, Pennsylvania rally and September 15, 2024 – West Palm Beach, Florida), they just happened to miss. Whether he deserved it or not is a matter of your viewpoint, but I suspect the threats and negative feelings increased only because of the times, nothing to do with the Meta speech rules. There are other channels to express viewpoints, and I suspect they're also increasingly against current politicians.
Broken windows theory applies (Score:2)
This is an example of the broken windows theory from sociology (not to be confused with the broken window fallacy from economics), which states that if visible signs of low-level disorder (e.g. broken windows in unused buildings) are tolerated, then more serious forms of social disorder will occur as well.
This definitely holds in online fora. As the level of abuse you allow rises linearly, the abuse that occurs grows exponentially. Up to a point, I guess. Once you're 4chan there's just nowhere worse to
You know it's funny (Score:2)
Lately it seems every time we get more free speech it's just more racism but having profound you criticize Saint Kirk.
And yeah the people who did mild criticism without glorifying violence and immediately got fired, and there were a couple dozen of them, did win their lawsuits, at least among them that had the money to do a lawsuit.
It's almost as if right wing extremists are weaponizing free speech and exactly the same way right wing extremists have always weaponized Free speech going all the way ba
Re: (Score:2)
> Lately it seems every time we get more free speech it's just more racism
Define "racism". I've been called "racist" by a racist liberal because I have a problem with illegal immigration, under the pretext of the fact that you don't reward bad behavior. He doesn't understand that concept. He fails to understand the fact that he is in fact the racist. He's assuming my problem is based on Hispanics and not illegal immigrants in general. He knows nothing of my past including trying to date a Brazilian and trying to date a DACA recipient. The latter is interested, but going through a
How can they get MORE permissive? (Score:2)
I really didn't think that was possible. Facebook has allowed it's platform to be used for straight-up ethnic cleansing.
[1]https://www.asc.upenn.edu/rese... [upenn.edu]
But, apparently, that's not permissive enough? Maybe they fired all their content moderators and it's now complete free-game?
Setting aside the moral considerations, this is bad business. X, 4chan and 8chan already occupy this space on the right, and bluesky is dominant on the far left. And most companies don't like their ads to be shown next to ne
[1] https://www.asc.upenn.edu/research/centers/milton-wolf-seminar-media-and-diplomacy/blog/road-hell-paved-good-intentions-role-facebook-fuelling-ethnic-violence
They need to do more for glass artists (Score:2)
Glass artists work hard to make amazing glass art.
The best have evolved the artform in exciting new directions.
Some of the art is functional, meaning it can be used to smoke cannabis.
FB and IG ban these artists for "illegal drug paraphernalia"
They even ban artists who make marbles and pendants that use designs similar to those used in pipes.
This is unfair. They are highly talented and hard working and don't deserve to be treated like that.
Zuck loves Trump. Fuck Zuck (Score:4, Insightful)
Billionaires bought the last election and it was so easy and cheap, it's difficult to imagine a world where they won't buy the winner. Zuck made Tons of money from Trump. Y'all are smart enough to know that moderated content = structured data, not entropic horseshit. If I wanted to drink from the toilet, I'd join X/Twitter.
Re: (Score:1)
Got to ask.....
So why does the right think Zuck tanked trump in 2020 with the cutting off the NY Post, remember bogus laptop, just before the election?
Could it be programmers racing to fulfill the whims the DOJ, UN, FBI, USAID, the media, the Defense Complex, The Pharma Complex, and the actual customer Ad buyers in the Online part of the Marketing company's for every industry under the sun.
So Zuck floats in the wind between 2016-2024... that is not his reported personality, he seems to be the Billi
Re: (Score:2)
You're actually reminding me of ChatGPT and how it operates. It spends too much time walking on egg shells and you have to tell the session to give direct and clear answers to questions so it stops doing that.
Re: (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with Trump and Zuck. Allowing free speech is amazing for a wide variety of reason and this increase in threats just means more criminals will be caught making violent threats.