Internal Facebook documents reveal hate speech policy

Leaked internal Facebook documents show how the team of moderators should deal with hate speech. For example, the documents provide tools for defining undesirable behavior such as racism.

The documents were obtained by Motherboard, which claims they were prepared by Facebook after the riots in Charlottesville, where neo-Nazis staged a protest march last year. Following the riots, Facebook has re-examined its policies, requiring the documents to explain to its moderators how to identify and address issues such as hate speech, racism and white supremacy.

In the area of ​​hate speech, the documents show a number of examples of what is and is not allowed. For example, glorifying white supremacy as an ideology is not allowed; the documents give some examples of comments that moderators should remove. Facebook also provides insight into which signals are used to define hate groups. Incidentally, Facebook also states that the boundaries are not always unambiguous.

In a response, Facebook indirectly confirms that the documents revealed by Motherboard are authentic. A spokesperson said it wants to tackle hate speech and hate groups on the social networking site.