Tuesday, 30 June 2020

Don’t speak ill of the dead


Nick Robinson speaks to Facebook’s Steve Hatch (1:51) about its new ‘no tolerance of hate speech’ policy. 

Reaching for the best example of Facebook’s algorithms ‘encouraging hate speech’, Nick Robinson cites Facebook’s current “most popular post” 
“It was a post that said George Floyd was a horrible human being and that racially motivated police brutality is a myth.”
and  (interrupting the response)
“Forgive me, but my point to you was that this was not just ‘a’ post it was an M & S post …..the “top post in the United States!!” On the day of something that triggered riots!!! 
“The top post that your algorithms had chosen to make was one that described a man that had just died - under police - er - control, as a myth - that racially motivated police brutality existed!!!
The BBC has descended into pure parody. Oh, Meggie Foster or Sarah Cooper - please, please do that; with appropriate facial expressions of course.