The change follows recommendations from Facebook’s Oversight Board
Facebook plans to update its community standards to clarify how it treats satire on its platform following recommendations from its Oversight Board.
The change to its community standards comes as the Oversight Board investigated a user who posted a satirical meme depicting Turkey having to choose between “The Armenian Genocide is a lie” and “The Armenians were terrorists who deserved it.”
Facebook initially took down the content for violating its policy on hate speech, as outlined in the social media giant’s community standards.
However, the content has now been reinstated after the Oversight Board ruled that Facebook should not have taken it down. The Oversight Board outlined that Facebook has said it would make exceptions for satirical content but hasn’t clarified what counts as satire.
As a result of this, Facebook says that it will work to outline what classifies as satire to make it easier for users to comply with its guidelines.
“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 social media giant said in a blog post.
“This change will allow teams to consider satire when assessing potential Hate Speech violations.”
Source: Facebook