Inside Track
Facebook Admits John Birch Society Post Was Not “Hate Speech”
In July, Facebook removed a post by The John Birch Society, this magazine’s parent organization, claiming that the “post goes against our Community Standards on hate.” Facebook also banned the JBS from monetizing its videos on Facebook for 30 days. But there was nothing hateful about the post in question: It showed our July 8 print magazine cover, which carried the title “Immigrant Invasion” and included a real photograph of illegal aliens illegally crossing a border fence. The New American responded to Facebook’s actions with a print article accurately accusing the social-media giant of censorship and hypocrisy. As a result of the backlash following the publication of that article, Facebook has backed down.
On August 21, members of Facebook’s U.S. Politics & Government Outreach and Advertising departments reached out to JBS/TNA and scheduled a conference call with JBS Chief Strategy Officer Bill Hahn. During that call, Facebook “concluded that [the post] was not a violation and apologized for their original action and restored the post, as well as reinstated our video monetization,” according to Hahn.
Those Facebook representatives told Hahn that the post was tagged because “an automated system ‘learns’ hate speech and is employed to alert [Facebook employees] of it.” While pointing to the text of the article as the “red flag” — since it mentioned both immigrants and diseases — Facebook’s representatives declined to provide JBS/TNA with a list of terms to avoid, claiming that no such list exists.
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