Facebook will update community standards to clarify its stance on satire
Facebook said it will revise its community standards to be clearer about how it handles satirical content, following a proposal from its Oversight Board, according to a blog post.
"We'll add information to the Community Standards that makes it clear where we consider satire as part of our assessment of context-specific decisions," the post says. "This change will allow teams to consider satire when assessing potential Hate Speech violations.
The update was announced after Facebook's Oversight Board concluded that it was incorrect to remove a user's comment that referred to the Turkish government based on the two buttons meme.
Facebook took down the post, citing its Cruel and Insensitive Community Standard, which states that posts that target "victims of serious bodily or mental injury," which includes memes and gifs, will be removed. The removal was then categorised by Facebook as falling under its Hate Speech Community Standard.
The Oversight Board pointed out in its recommendation that while Facebook has said it will make exceptions for satire, it doesn't specify how or what qualifies as satire in its guidelines. Facebook said in its post that in addition to making its guidelines around satire clearer, it would "initiate a review of identical content with parallel context," and may take further action.
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