Note: the below is just a reporting about a topic, Malwarebytes is not actually involved in their project in any way. It is not us endorsing – or not endorsing – or even being one of the individuals or companies involved in said topic being covered. The phrase “illegal online hate speech” is referred to as such by the EU Commission working with Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Early this week, Instagram CEO and Co-founder Kevin Systrom have posted on their blog about some changes they made to the image-based social platform, particularly, users are now given the power to filter out comments that they deem are nasty, discriminatory, or critical. And they have done this in order to continue promoting Instagram as a safe and positive place for users from diverse backgrounds, races, beliefs, and more.
Systrom wrote: “The first feature we’re introducing is a keyword moderation tool that anyone can use. Now, when you tap the gear icon on your profile, you’ll find a new Comments tool. This feature lets you list words you consider offensive or inappropriate. Comments with these words will be hidden from your posts. You can choose your own list of words or use default words we’ve provided. This is in addition to the tools we’ve already developed such as swiping to delete comments, reporting inappropriate comments and blocking accounts.”
Instagram’s Help Center already contains the complete instructions on how users can set their accounts to begin filtering comments.
Instagram appears to be the latest household name that has made a move to address online hate speech within their platform. Late in August, Microsoft’s Chief Online Safety Officer Jacqueline Beauchere introduced new sources users can use to help them curb threats of violence and other harmful language. These new sources are in the form of two report forms users can fill in: one, for reporting hate speech found on Microsoft’s consumer services, and, two, for requesting content to be reinstated if found to be removed or taken down in error.
Several months before this, internet giants Twitter, Facebook, and Google have declared war against hate speech as part of a joint initiative with the European Commission to address challenges surrounding hate speech and the possibility of virality within their platforms. According to the official press release, “the Commission and the IT Companies recognise that the spread of illegal hate speech online not only negatively affects the groups or individuals that it targets, it also negatively impacts those who speak out for freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our open societies and has a chilling effect on the democratic discourse on online platforms.”
Jovi Umawing
Like many other extremely easy to predict things, nukes have to go off before action is taken. Better later then never, i guess.
It’s funny.
Neither government nor corporations could censor the internet because the users rose up and fought them off.
But all it took was some women crying because people made fun of them to turn you all against free speech and start throwing around horrific concepts such as “illegal hate speech.”
Good luck pushing back next time when “verbal conduct” is monitored and punished.
Instagram for sissies I guess. First or all critical and nasty are subjective terms. Saying Nazis were bad is critical and nasty to Nazis for instance. Having a differing opinion is not discrimination. You arent denying someone service or goods or any basic right by criticizing them or disagreeing with them. The very concept of hate speech is unamerican and there is no such thing as “illegal hate speech”
yes to special snpowflakes words are like nukes. man up .