Facebook's internal tools for flagging abusive content have mistaken the US Declaration of Independence for hate speech, according to reports. America's founding document was adopted on 4 July 1776, a date now celebrated as Independence Day in the US. Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation reflects the original. In the lead-up to the Fourth of July holiday, Facebook removed a post containing sections of the Declaration of Independence as hate speech. Stories detailing the incident have been gaining In 1996 John Perry Barlow penned his 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace'. The war between politicians and tech-idealists had just begun. While it’s true that the Declaration of Independence contains some politically incorrect language according to today’s standards, Facebook’s censorship did little more than succeed in “whitewashing America’s founding just as we get ready to celebrate it,” Britschgi writes. Facebook quickly responded to the public backlash over the decision to censor the Declaration of Independence and reinstated the post on July 3. In the latest wake-up call that Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter censorship is completely out of control, Facebook recently banned a post that shared a section of the Declaration of Independence. The Vindicator, a small-town Texas publisher, was sharing text from the document when Facebook banned it, citing “hate speech” guidelines. Did you know that every year in Boston on the Fourth of July the Declaration of Independence is read from the Old State House from the very balcony that it was read to the citizens of Boston in the Facebook's algorithms have ruled that parts of the US Declaration of Independence are hate speech and removed excerpts of them posted to the platform. It was in a word, revolutionary. But as powerful of an annunciation as this declaration of independence was soon the people who wrote it were faced with a difficult responsibility. What did this freedom look like? Did it look like being free from things that inhibit our freedom? Did you know that every year in Boston on the Fourth of July the Declaration of Independence is read from the Old State House from the very balcony that it was read to the citizens of Boston in the The story about how Facebook had censored one of the United States’ founding texts on the grounds that it was hate speech has traveled around the world. FACT CHECK: Did Facebook Flag the Declaration of Independence as Hate Speech? A phrase contained in a excerpt from one of America's founding documents triggered the social network's acceptable content filtering. In February, 1996, when John Perry Barlow first unleashed his declaration of independence for cyberspace upon cyberspace, it was the Talk of the Town. That was on the heels of the passage of the Communications Decency Act and netizens everywhere were feeling the jarring effects of turbulence created by mainstream culture (represented, sort of, by the government) clashing with netculture. The We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Facebook’s policies for censoring hate speech have again come under fire after the social media giant labeled a passage from the Declaration of Independence as hate speech. Facebook So we can verify, yes, Facebook did originally remove what was thought to be hate speech from only a term used in the Declaration of Independence but not the entire text of it. Somewhere in paragraphs 27-31 of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote something that Facebook finds offensive. Leading up to Independence Day, The Vindicator challenged its Facebook followers to read the Declaration of Independence. Did you know that every year in Boston on the Fourth of July the Declaration of Independence is read from the Old State House from the very balcony that it was read to the citizens of Boston in the Facebook did not flag the entire Declaration of Independence as hate speech, but only one out of twelve excerpts from the complete text.
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